Gear shouldn't matter for mids..max stats for all

[Evanouss]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying it but wouldn't it make sense, in a bracket that doesn't matter apparently, to just give everyone the same exact stats....i.e. full bolster and same bonus damage/healing? It seems like a ridiculous equation has being implemented to bolster an infinite possibility of different levels/quality of gear.

 

Just have bolster for lows/mids and remove it from 60's. Give 60's starting/easy to get pvp gear?

 

Seems like this would solve a lot of problems.

[Lhancelot]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying it but wouldn't it make sense, in a bracket that doesn't matter apparently, to just give everyone the same exact stats....i.e. full bolster and same bonus damage/healing? It seems like a ridiculous equation has being implemented to bolster an infinite possibility of different levels/quality of gear.

 

Just have bolster for lows/mids and remove it from 60's. Give 60's starting/easy to get pvp gear?

 

Seems like this would solve a lot of problems.

 

Yes, this is one solution, there are many solutions to fixing an entire bracket being broken though. But... Really. No. One. Cares. Ignoring the PVP community will be the downfall of this game.

[Savej]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying it but wouldn't it make sense, in a bracket that doesn't matter apparently, to just give everyone the same exact stats....i.e. full bolster and same bonus damage/healing? It seems like a ridiculous equation has being implemented to bolster an infinite possibility of different levels/quality of gear.

 

Just have bolster for lows/mids and remove it from 60's. Give 60's starting/easy to get pvp gear?

 

Seems like this would solve a lot of problems.

 

Then the only difference between a level 10 and a 29 would be the available abilities and that wouldn't be fair. At one point bolster gave an extra buff to lower levels but I'm not sure how it works now (it probably doesn't).

Edited February 2, 2015 by Savej

[Lhancelot]

Then the only difference between a level 10 and a 29 would be the available abilities and that wouldn't be fair. At one point bolster gave an extra buff to lower levels but I'm not sure how it works now (it probably doesn't).

 

10-29 aint bad. 30-59 is unplayable for lowbies. ALL levels get bolstered incrementally higher, so by the time a toon is 55+ they have a vastly superior amount of main stats and health, giving them an even greater advantage in the warzone than their additional abilities already give. They hit harder, and take more damage than the lowbies by a great amount. It's ridiculous. Get to lvl 30, and try it out. Ranged dps fair the best because they can sit back and dps from distance. Anyone else that's lower lvl gets destroyed by any 55-59 with barely any effort on the higher lvls part.

[Azurestone]

I seem to have observed that if you use 10-29 pieces in midz then you stats would be screwed, but I have not been able to confirm it

[Ashanor]

I seem to have observed that if you use 10-29 pieces in midz then you stats would be screwed, but I have not been able to confirm it

 

 

So then explain why even when my mods are perfectly synced with my level I still have 31k health?

[Alyssis]

Ignoring the PVP community will be the downfall of this game.

 

This... people have said this countless times since day 1..

 

It just isn't true...

[Ashanor]

This... people have said this countless times since day 1..

 

It just isn't true...

 

Except they have been bleeding PvP'ers for years and now are bleeding them at an even higher rate.

[Lhancelot]

This... people have said this countless times since day 1..

 

It just isn't true...

 

How exactly would this be said on day 1? Wouldn't it take some time to establish the PVP, then create multiple bad patches over a span of time (over 2 years) ruining the PVP, causing the PVPers to leave for this to be said? Because that's how it has happened...

 

It wasn't until 3.0 with all of it's PVP changes that PVP was in such shambles as it is now. And, 2 months after 3.0, nothing has been addressed or fixed. Not even acknowledged in a post on the forums to the PVP community. Pretty shameful, and no wonder many people are quitting. Players who used to enjoy the PVP, and were subs.

 

We will see. Only time can really prove what will be the downfall of this game. I can say pretty confidently that PVPers leaving this game will have a bigger impact than you think though.

[Zoom_VI]

Then the only difference between a level 10 and a 29 would be the available abilities and that wouldn't be fair. At one point bolster gave an extra buff to lower levels but I'm not sure how it works now (it probably doesn't).

 

Lowbies are slightly compensated by having increased armor DR. For instance my level 20 tank assassins gets a whopping 55% passive DR. Unfortunately armor means little in this meta.

[Icykill_]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying it but wouldn't it make sense, in a bracket that doesn't matter apparently, to just give everyone the same exact stats....i.e. full bolster and same bonus damage/healing? It seems like a ridiculous equation has being implemented to bolster an infinite possibility of different levels/quality of gear.

 

Just have bolster for lows/mids and remove it from 60's. Give 60's starting/easy to get pvp gear?

 

Seems like this would solve a lot of problems.

 

This would work for 30-59 bracket... But not so much for pre30... Then you have the problem of when people get to LVL 60 and haven't learned how to min max bolster to give them close to entry LVL pvp gear... I can see that causing a whole lot of new problems for those people...

[Ashanor]

This would work for 30-59 bracket... But not so much for pre30... Then you have the problem of when people get to LVL 60 and haven't learned how to min max bolster to give them close to entry LVL pvp gear... I can see that causing a whole lot of new problems for those people...

 

The fact that it's a whole side game of figuring out how to maximize a bolster is a problem in itself. It should just be a flat bolster that is always the same.

[waterboytkd]

Gear LEVEL shouldn't matter for level 60s, either. Scrap expertise, bolster all items and mods to 198 versions (so we still have customization over our stats), change PvP rewards to 186 stuff for reg Comms, 192 for ranked comms (or 190 if it's such a big deal to get Ops gear from PvP).

[thatPERSON]

This... people have said this countless times since day 1..

 

It just isn't true...

 

good thing the pvpers stayed around the first spring of this game otherwise there would be no swtor

[Exosasa]

Gear LEVEL shouldn't matter for level 60s, either. Scrap expertise, bolster all items and mods to 198 versions (so we still have customization over our stats), change PvP rewards to 186 stuff for reg Comms, 192 for ranked comms (or 190 if it's such a big deal to get Ops gear from PvP).

 

This is incredibly bad. It blurs the line between PvP and PvE gear.

[thatPERSON]

This is incredibly bad. It blurs the line between PvP and PvE gear.

 

i think that was his point....

[waterboytkd]

This is incredibly bad. It blurs the line between PvP and PvE gear.

 

That's the idea. Why should they be different? So PvP players wreck PvEers by gear alone via Expertise? There's nothing sporting there. Using Bolster in this way makes sure end game Ops runners don't do the opposite, which was the original point of Expertise. It fixes all the issues of gear and PvP, and its only "downside" is that it removes gear grind from the experience (though you still get to min max your stats however you see fit).

[revial]

10-29 aint bad. 30-59 is unplayable for lowbies. ALL levels get bolstered incrementally higher, so by the time a toon is 55+ they have a vastly superior amount of main stats and health, giving them an even greater advantage in the warzone than their additional abilities already give. They hit harder, and take more damage than the lowbies by a great amount. It's ridiculous. Get to lvl 30, and try it out. Ranged dps fair the best because they can sit back and dps from distance. Anyone else that's lower lvl gets destroyed by any 55-59 with barely any effort on the higher lvls part.

 

This is very exaggerated, but the spirit of what you say is essentially true. Bolster was linearly designed off a linear power creep based off levels, which made sense. The problem is we have two points where that power creep bucks the trend. Level 50 (though this is much less an issue now, since hardly anyone does level 50 end game gearing), and level 55. Both points where there was far more powercreep within a level than any other levels. SoR exacerbated this issue by throwing out leveling quest rewards far more powerful for their level than any other previous level and corresponding gear equivalent.

 

I have always liked the intention behind bolster over simply maxing everyone's stats. At the end of the day, this is still an MMO, and-in principle-the driving carrot is bettering your toon. Bolster allowed for the possibility of a relatively level playing field-stat wise-assuming you put the effort into gearing your toon. If you were a chump who simply relied on bolster without bothering to gear yourself in any way, you were still a chump when bolstered. This is why you'll see level 30-54s with anywhere between 27k-39k hp. No matter the cynic's view, this is still an MMO, not Counter Strike. People should be putting some actual effort into their toons, even while leveling, and simply maxing stats for everyone makes a mockery of that effort.

 

So, from where I stand, Bioware needs to redo bolster's math not based on the typical power associated with gear for a given level during the "leveling" levels, but with the power associated with gear between levels 55-59. Their mistake was obviously not doing so when SWTOR was released, despite tweaking bolster twice (I think?) upon the expansion's release.

 

I'm a big believer in the bigger picture, regression to mean, etc, and I tend to not think the power differential is not nearly as big of a deal as you obviously do (both sides see it occur, there's a pretty wide variance in player skill with the vast majority of players not being particularly any good, the combat aspect of pvp in this game has very little actual meta elements, etc), but it certainly seems like a fairly simple fix on Bioware's part.

 

However, I like to think of myself as a realist. It seems patently obvious that Bioware has a skeleton crew working on the game, based off the types of updates we get, and I'll simply continue gearing my sub-55s to the best of my ability to minimize the stat differential against a bolstered 55+ as much as possible, and count on the fact that it's a team and objectives based warzone (for the most part), not necessarily a deathmatch, instead of twiddling my fingers wondering when(if) Bioware will ever "fix" something.

Edited February 3, 2015 by revial

[Exosasa]

That's the idea. Why should they be different? So PvP players wreck PvEers by gear alone via Expertise? There's nothing sporting there. Using Bolster in this way makes sure end game Ops runners don't do the opposite, which was the original point of Expertise. It fixes all the issues of gear and PvP, and its only "downside" is that it removes gear grind from the experience (though you still get to min max your stats however you see fit).

 

Because if you do this, then scrubalicious Ops players can just walk on into PvP areas and be fine, instead of working for a reward like everyone else. Rewards from PvP should suck in PvE, and vice versa.

 

Call me a traditionalist, but ezmode serves no one. Except baddies. No one cares about baddies, though.

[Lhancelot]

This is very exaggerated, but the spirit of what you say is essentially true. Bolster was linearly designed off a linear power creep based off levels, which made sense. The problem is we have two points where that power creep bucks the trend. Level 50 (though this is much less an issue now, since hardly anyone does level 50 end game gearing), and level 55. Both points where there was far more powercreep within a level than any other levels. SoR exacerbated this issue by throwing out leveling quest rewards far more powerful for their level than any other previous level and corresponding gear equivalent.

 

I have always liked the intention behind bolster over simply maxing everyone's stats. At the end of the day, this is still an MMO, and-in principle-the driving carrot is bettering your toon. Bolster allowed for the possibility of a relatively level playing field-stat wise-assuming you put the effort into gearing your toon. If you were a chump who simply relied on bolster without bothering to gear yourself in any way, you were still a chump when bolstered. This is why you'll see level 30-54s with anywhere between 27k-39k hp. No matter the cynic's view, this is still an MMO, not Counter Strike. People should be putting some actual effort into their toons, even while leveling, and simply maxing stats for everyone makes a mockery of that effort.

 

So, from where I stand, Bioware needs to redo bolster's math not based on the typical power associated with gear for a given level during the "leveling" levels, but with the power associated with gear between levels 55-59. Their mistake was obviously not doing so when SWTOR was released, despite tweaking bolster twice (I think?) upon the expansion's release.

 

I'm a big believer in the bigger picture, regression to mean, etc, and I tend to not think the power differential is not nearly as big of a deal as you obviously do (both sides see it occur, there's a pretty wide variance in player skill with the vast majority of players not being particularly any good, the combat aspect of pvp in this game has very little actual meta elements, etc), but it certainly seems like a fairly simple fix on Bioware's part.

 

However, I like to think of myself as a realist. It seems patently obvious that Bioware has a skeleton crew working on the game, based off the types of updates we get, and I'll simply continue gearing my sub-55s to the best of my ability to minimize the stat differential against a bolstered 55+ as much as possible, and count on the fact that it's a team and objectives based warzone (for the most part), not necessarily a deathmatch, instead of twiddling my fingers wondering when(if) Bioware will ever "fix" something.

 

I can respect your difference in opinion on the severity of the issues this bolster problem creates for the mids bracket, at least you recognize the exact issue and also acknowledge that it DOES need fixed. If only you were a dev for swtor.

 

I also agree that part of the issue is they cannot, or do not allocate enough devs to fix/tweak the PVP problems. I view myself as a realist also, and I believe they choose to not put people to work on the PVP facets of the game because to them it's not worth it. The PVP in their mind takes a back seat to everything else.

 

I no longer play because of that, whether it is puposeful design on BW's end or simply a matter of them not being able to address the problems. That is not my problem.

 

Their product no longer satisfies me, so personally I find it impossible to continue playing it. I hope things get "fixed" but honestly, the amount of stuff needing done, well, I am in doubt it can be fixed at this point.

[Lhancelot]

Call me a traditionalist, but ezmode serves no one. Except baddies. No one cares about baddies, though.

 

Honestly, there is not one thing in this game I would ever consider "hard". Hard in comparison would be MMOs like eq1, where the pve was so challenging it could take a raid of 80 people to finish a quest. That's just an example.

 

Even the grind for top pvp gears on this game isn't "hard", it just takes a small amount of time. The only thing frustrating on this game is the gigantic imbalances of classes versus other classes in PVP. That's not "hard", that's poor gameplay.