PvPers don't want Player vs. Gear

[BlissDivine]

I'm seeing friends leave the game because they think that they can't be competitive in PVP because of gear. I play a lot and even I don't have a full set of 242s on a toon, and my alts have really bad gear.

 

I think it was a mistake to remove PVP gear and put in the endless gear grind of 5.0.

 

4.0 was the best for PvPers in terms of getting gear. What would have taken me less than 2 weeks in the past is now 3+ months and still going.

[jedcjedcjedc]

currently running around on my squishy-*** sorc in 208s. Gear doesn't matter in really anything except ranked.

[mmmbuddah]

currently running around on my squishy-*** sorc in 208s. Gear doesn't matter in really anything except ranked.

 

If you go against a group of similar skilled players who all have 242 and you have 220s, you will lose, end of story, their damage / healing / mitigation will be much MUCH higher than yours.

 

To the OP, it is , in fact , P v G atm, it is pretty obvious sadly. This was the reason we had pvp gear before, and now we have this nonsense.

[jedcjedcjedc]

If you go against a group of similar skilled players who all have 242 and you have 220s, you will lose, end of story, their damage / healing / mitigation will be much MUCH higher than yours.

 

To the OP, it is , in fact , P v G atm, it is pretty obvious sadly. This was the reason we had pvp gear before, and now we have this nonsense.

full 242's is a myth, a legend people tell their kids at bedtime, lol. seriously though, bolster is only slightly less than it usually is, and in 5.2 it will be back to 8 lvls like it has been.

[Icykill_]

I'm seeing friends leave the game because they think that they can't be competitive in PVP because of gear. I play a lot and even I don't have a full set of 242s on a toon, and my alts have really bad gear.

 

I think it was a mistake to remove PVP gear and put in the endless gear grind of 5.0.

 

4.0 was the best for PvPers in terms of getting gear. What would have taken me less than 2 weeks in the past is now 3+ months and still going.

 

I only pvp and have 30+ alts which I play. I enjoy playing all my alts, so this new gearing regime is preventing me from playing them at lvl 70.

Pvp should only ever be about skill vs skill. This new system is stupid.

I took a two and half month break when 5.0 was released in the hope they would make some adjustments to the system. But I come back and find they did nothing meaningful and ontop of that they nerf Bolster back lower to create an even bigger gear gap for the haves and the have nots.

Some people have been lucky and got 242 gear relatively quickly with not much effort. While others have put in twice as many hours and don't have one piece. That isn't fair and does not reward people equally for the time spent grinding this system.

Ontop of that they give people more parts who are winning more because of gear, so they end up gearing even faster. But all the people who really need the help get left behind and it doesn't matter how hard they work for it.

This games pvp has definitely turned into player vs gear and that is a big turn off for everyone.

While good players can over come the system against most regular players, when they are up against the same skill lvl as themselves the gear gap is more than apparent. It makes me want to leave again. Pvp has many different skill lvls of people in it and good players get extremely frustrated when lower skilled players on their teams are losing matches because the other side has better gear.

Ontop of that people are now trolling and abusing people who don't have high enough gear. I've seen people with high lvl gear pop into a team and see people with low level gear, so they leave. Eventually everyone left on the team has low lvl gear and they get pitted against a high lvl geared team and it's a slaughter.

Your Average skilled player needs to have no gear gap because they are building skills. When you have a gear gap it gives a massive advantage to other Average players against them. That is a massive turn off to playing pvp.

Bioware often have these ideas on how to get more people pvping or trying pvp. This time it's to farm stuff for pve content, last time it was conquest. While I like that they are trying to get people to pvp, they always end up failing because of bad implementation and it is even more detrimental on pvp and the pvp population than if they'd done nothing.

If they want more people to pvp, then implement these things better and not do them half assed. They could still let people grind in pvp for everything they need for pve, but just make everything in pvp Bolster to within 1-2% of each other. Dedicated pvpers will still play pvp regardless, we know it's skill vs skill and that's what we enjoy. We'll still be grinding gear for pve if we want to ever play it, which a lot of us don't... Making pvp people grind out gear like this and having a gear gap won't make us play more, which is what RNG is designed to do, it will actually drive pvpers away and make us play less.

With no gear gap, PvE people who want to grind their pve gear in pvp will be more likely to play pvp to get that gear and they will have a more enjoyable time doing so because there is no gear gap.

The whole system is working against itself and is essentially destroying the whole game, but pvp is the first causality and will probably die before they do anything to fix the game. By then it will be too late to revive pvp because all the dedicated pvpers will have left and the remaining people won't play because of the gear gap.

 

I've been playing WoW the last 2 months and they've also introduced a RNG system, which is where Bioware stole it from. While I'm not a fan, they've implemented it 1000% better than Bioware and also made mostly obtainable without making a huge gear gap in pvp. Even die hard fans who dislike the new system are now on board because it's actually been implemented so well and all their fears about it have been appeased.

But we've had exactly the opposite experience here. Everything we were worried about has come to pass and then some. All the doom and gloom before 5.0 has not even come close to what feared, it's actually a lot worse.

I'm probably going to go back to Warcraft until Star Citizen is ready for launch. I don't want to go back to WoW because I've loved this game and I'm a massive SW nerd, but Bioware have made this game into a dogs breakfast. It's now so bad that if they'd released the game in this current state at launch, they would have had the servers turned off within 6 months.

[Icykill_]

I actually wanted to add something else, but didn't want to make my previous essay any bigger.

 

The only pvp gearing that seems fair in the game still is sub 70. Everyone is nearly Bolstered to similar lvls. It doesn't matter if you're a lvl 50 vs a lvl 69, you will basically have the same gear stats. Of course the lvl 69 has more abilities, but it's still skill vs skill, not skill vs gear.

IMO the only enjoyable pvp in the game now is pre 70. It's why I've taken advanatage of using those white acute modules to turn off the XP boost.

 

BIOWARE - that's the type of gear Bolster we need for lvl 70 and rank. It's the only fair gearing system for pvp.

[mmmbuddah]

full 242's is a myth, a legend people tell their kids at bedtime, lol. seriously though, bolster is only slightly less than it usually is, and in 5.2 it will be back to 8 lvls like it has been.

 

Nope, I inspect everyones gear on my team before I start a match, and I hve seen full 242s, and I have seen how they destroy anyone using lower tier gear.

 

And it is not slightly less. IT bolstered to 250 before, now only 232. That is a monster difference.

Edited March 5, 2017 by mmmbuddah

[Purgamentorum]

Title says it all. This ranked season means less than ever before surely the nail is in the coffin for it now. As for regs a couple of full 242 on one team and a couple of low gear on the other (especially healers) doesn't mean a close match or a game the underdog can win by guile. It's an absolute rampage.

 

The last expansion wanted to get more people pvping. This one wants PVP players with years of sub behind them to go back to PVE. It's the only real way to gear now. And when you have that gear you'll be bored of the game

[RooRider]

This new gearing system is designed purely for players to purchase those 65 tokens; EA simply want to squeeze more money out of their player base. To encourage purchasing these tokens, they have made all pre-70 content obsolete. Un-assembled components replaced wz comms, and they're only available at level 70; what is the point of doing pvp while leveling anymore? No pre-70 pve content has any bearing on your ability to purchase end-game pve gear; what's the point of doing any story content? Rush to level 70 where you can start earning cxp, components and get gear drops from ops.

 

This rush to get to level 70 is the major cause of problems in pvp (in addition to zero match-making); people are too inexperienced at playing their class.I first came to the harb server around 2.4, 2.5. The first few toons I rolled I levelled almost exclusively through pvp; whatever time of day I played I never waited more than 10 minutes for a pop. By the time I got to level 55 I had enough comms to buy top tier pvp gear; but more importantly, I had a basic understanding of how to play my class in pvp. I was by no means great, but I was at least competent. I recently came back to the game after a year off and decided to roll a new toon, with the intention of levelling through pvp; this proved impossible. With the exception of a few hours a day lowbies wasn’t popping; no lowbies on the harbinger server, the most populated server in the game! Since getting my toons to level 70, what I have noticed is the standard of play in regs generally is terrible. It isn’t gear that’s the problem, it doesn’t take bis 242 gear to enable you to do 1k dps. It isn’t lack of gear that prevents you from typing “inc snow” in chat. These are l2p issues not gear issues. I’ve essentially gone back to exclusively playing op and scoundrel heals; I don’t send my gear between toons as I can’t see a difference in my numbers between my 208 gear on scoundrel and my 236-242 gear on operative. Maybe there’s a difference, but honestly it’s negligible. The last game I played on my scoundrel (and will be the last I play in a long time), my group consisted of 2 heals, 2 tanks and 4 dps in a hypergate; both heals got over 7k hps each, both tanks got more than 1mil protection, all 4 dps got UNDER 1k dps. Under 1k dps at level 70…all the gear in the world isn’t going to fix that. Unfortunately that one particular match isn’t the exception, it’s a common occurrence. You could gift these players full 242 gear, and all they’ll be is bad players with good gear (on a side note, you want a REAL increase in stats try using your class buffs, they do actually work in pvp).

 

If EA actually care about their loyal customers (lmao) they’ll re-introduce un-assembled components (wz comms) back into lowbie pvp, dropping at the same rate they drop at level 70. Give people an incentive to play lowbies again rather than rush to level 70. I don’t think anyone that plays the game essentially for the pvp likes lopsided matches; you want to win, but just as importantly you want it to be a good game. When you have teams full of people with no clue, pvp is about as exciting as running heroics. Gear isn’t going to stop that merc on your team dropping all his dcd’s at the first sign of trouble, only experience and a willingness to learn is going to fix that.

 

Re-introducing comms to lowbies leads to players getting more experience using their class before level 70, which leads to improved competitiveness of games at level 70.

 

“Make lowbies great again.” – Donald J Trump, 2016

[jedcjedcjedc]

Nope, I inspect everyones gear on my team before I start a match, and I hve seen full 242s, and I have seen how they destroy anyone using lower tier gear.

 

And it is not slightly less. IT bolstered to 250 before, now only 232. That is a monster difference.

 

I'm sure it's all over.

 

it might be a "monster difference" if some people stayed at 250, but nobody did. 232-242 is at max a difference of 10. this is if you have a person just starting out with no gear vs someone with full gear. Most situations will be something in the middle. In 5.2 bolster will be 238 vs 246 max. that is a difference of 8 as it has usually been. especially as when 5.2 starts, nobody will have any 246 so it will be 238 vs 242 at max

[Bobby_McDonald]

I made a similar statement in another thread:

 

This whole thread is a proof that nerfing the bolster in 5.1. Was a mistake.

Gear can only increase your dps, hps and survivability in a small percentage range but still people here are complelaining about being "destroyed" by better geared (thats what they assume) players. Actually if they are getting destroyed it MUST be a skill problem. Also as a skilled player you get destroyed sometimes, because especially in regs its a teamplay game. A premade with 2 dps or more who do focus and hardswitch together clearly do not need 242 gear to destroy most opponents in ranked. They can probably even do it naked.

 

Even the smallest differences in gear give bad to average players the chance to have excuses when they face players who are really experienced and know all classes in and out.

Without any doubt they can claim that their output statistics would increase by 20% and more if they just had 242 gear.

 

I currently play regularly PvP (also ranked) with one char in alsmost 242, one char in 230 and and 3 with moslty old 208. I never ever met someone in PvP who was doing better than me for gear reasons. If someone does better than me, it is usually because he IS better.

 

Sometimes I feel that some individuals have an unfair advantage because they have privat healers or tanks who support them. Then I feel that they win and have a shinier statistic in the end eventhough I am actually a better player. But this is due to their team effort, its not their gear.

 

Guys, gear is an excuse. If you keybind ALL abilities, even medpac etc, know all your own abilities and also the other classes, you can go out there and will not feel any differences between your main on 242 and your alt in 208.

 

You will still get destroyed sometimes but you will know; its because the teams are (skillwise!) unbalanced.

 

Conclusion: Bring back the epic 5.0 bolster. NOTHING will change, except that all gear arguments will disappear. People will still get destroyed. Bad players play bad. Good players play good. But everyone will have to blaime it on themselves instead of the gearing system. Until they find something else like Datacrons or sth

Edited March 5, 2017 by Bobby_McDonald

[Balameb]

I made a similar statement in another thread:

 

This whole thread is a proof that nerfing the bolster in 5.1. Was a mistake.

 

At least i agree on that.

But gear difference is real, the "10" in rating(is not 10 in stats) difference translate in average 5% to 7%+ in several stats. So someone with more HP, that hits you for more (AND even MORE on crits) has an advantage of arround 15% at the very least. Of course, player skills still are the more important aspect, but gear gives an edge. The outcome in a 1v1 may only change in relatively close fights.

 

And the problem with PvP is not just gear. The incredible amount of Mercs is just sad. Combined with the general class imbalance and incredible bad distribution of teams you have a very poor PvP experience when all those factors combine in several WZ in a row.

[Icykill_]

I made a similar statement in another thread:

 

This whole thread is a proof that nerfing the bolster in 5.1. Was a mistake.

Gear can only increase your dps, hps and survivability in a small percentage range but still people here are complelaining about being "destroyed" by better geared (thats what they assume) players. Actually if they are getting destroyed it MUST be a skill problem. Also as a skilled player you get destroyed sometimes, because especially in regs its a teamplay game. A premade with 2 dps or more who do focus and hardswitch together clearly do not need 242 gear to destroy most opponents in ranked. They can probably even do it naked.

 

Even the smallest differences in gear give bad to average players the chance to have excuses when they face players who are really experienced and know all classes in and out.

Without any doubt they can claim that their output statistics would increase by 20% and more if they just had 242 gear.

 

I currently play regularly PvP (also ranked) with one char in alsmost 242, one char in 230 and and 3 with moslty old 208. I never ever met someone in PvP who was doing better than me for gear reasons. If someone does better than me, it is usually because he IS better.

 

Sometimes I feel that some individuals have an unfair advantage because they have privat healers or tanks who support them. Then I feel that they win and have a shinier statistic in the end eventhough I am actually a better player. But this is due to their team effort, its not their gear.

 

Guys, gear is an excuse. If you keybind ALL abilities, even medpac etc, know all your own abilities and also the other classes, you can go out there and will not feel any differences between your main on 242 and your alt in 208.

 

You will still get destroyed sometimes but you will know; its because the teams are (skillwise!) unbalanced.

 

Conclusion: Bring back the epic 5.0 bolster. NOTHING will change, except that all gear arguments will disappear. People will still get destroyed. Bad players play bad. Good players play good. But everyone will have to blaime it on themselves instead of the gearing system. Until they find something else like Datacrons or sth

 

While I agree that skill normally out weighs gear when playing regular skilled people. We are talking about similar skilled people, mostly new pvpers, who are getting destroyed by their similar skilled enemies but with heaps higher gear.

When you are learning to pvp, every bit of help is an advantage, so better gear for some people gives them an unfair advanatage over others.

 

I'm an avid pvp, it's all I do in the game and have been since day one, 5 years ago. I've seen all the gearing systems in this game and the gear gaps and when gearing was also fair. It's easy to tell when there is a gear gap when you've played as long as I have and there is definitely a gear gap.

 

You are obviously a better than average player, probably one of the better players left in the game with so many people leaving. So it might not make much of a difference to you if you are wearing 208 gear or 242 gear. To be honest it hardly matters to me either, not because I'm some super skilled player, but because most people pvping these days are new pvpers or casual pve people trying to get CXP. For me there is the problem of a huge discrepancy in skill that makes gear the least of my issues with Pvp.

 

I did notice something interesting as I've been lvling my alts to 70. In any bracket sub 70 where Bolster is pretty much the same and the difference in stats are minimal, I was easily able to top nearly every match by a significant amount, sometimes double my team mates or the other team. This didnt matter what class I was on or what lvl. I lvl'd up a lowbie a couple pre 65s and a few 65s with 208 pvp gear. Everything was normal till I hit 70. As soon as I hit 70 my dps drop significantly and in some cases by a third. I didn't change my game play and the people I was playing weren't much better than they'd been in pre70. At first I couldn't figure out what the hell had happened, then someone pointed out I was still in 208 gear. So I used some credits to buy 230 mods, enhancements and hilts/barrels to test this and jumped back into pvp. As soon as I did I saw my damage go back to where it was pre70.

Bolster is supposed to take you to 232, so theoretically the 208 gear should have been fine till I got my 242 gear because 230 gear would only have a small amount of Bolster added to make them 232. This was not the case and is the issue most people have with this system. Before they decided to nerf Bolster, there was only a small gear gap and you could live with it. But now that gap is bigger because of that Bolster nerf. To make matters worse, there will be a whole new gear lvl introduced in 5.2. That will make the gap even bigger.

 

I'm sure as a pvper you would agree that it should always be about skill vs skill and that gear should have no influence or a very minor one. While ever gear is giving an unfair advantage to people there is a gearing gap issue.

 

Bolster needs to be set so that there is never more than a 2-3% difference in gear lvl, similar to how it is setup pre 70.

A gear gap just isn't needed in pvp and having the highest gear should not give you a noticeable edge over others.

Then pvp is about skill and people have no reason to use gear as an excuse when they come up against better players. They'll know straight up that it's not gear and they just got bested by a better player and there will be no excuses and no doubt that it was skill.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Icykill_

[Jedi_riches]

Honestly I may just be a bad player but I have played quite a bit of PvP over the weekend and feel like I am hitting enemies you a stick of foam and not a lightsaber for all my attacking their HP does not seem to go down yet mine does rather quickly.

[Bobby_McDonald]

(...)

 

I absolutely agree that PvP should be about skill (including teamwork) only. Thats why I loved the bolster in 5.0 because realy no one cared about gear. It was also better than 4.0 because back then there was the low-expertise-problem of some players.

 

I also agree that there is a small gear gap currently.

 

I just refuse to believe that gear would make such a difference that e.g. gearing up would increase your dps by the third you lost when you entered 70s.

 

I also refuse to believe that a team that gets destroyed be a premade in 242s would get "less" destroyed by a premade in 208s.

 

It is to be expected that your dps drops from 69 to 70.

 

The bolster in mid seems to work quite fair when it comes to dps. With higher level you have more and stronger abilities but you gain less stats from bolster so that in general a 50 can do as much dps as a 69.

 

BUT: At high level in mid warzones you have all your abilities to decrease armor etc while facing some people who do not have all their defense abilities, cleanes, self heals etc yet.

 

If you look for the argumentation about why precision is useless in PvP you will find figures that proof that defense abilities have an incredible huge influence on the dps of the attacker.

 

Since these defenses make a huge difference in your dps, I assume that most of your 1/3 loss in dps when you hit 70 was due to the fact that suddenly all your opponents had abilties (and knew how to use them) to migitate dmg.

 

You and some others named it already: 242 vs 208 gear only matters if people are facing eachother of absolutely identical skill. And in a duel since teamwork outplays gear as well. So when does that ever happen?

 

I recently had quite a lot of games where there was a 1vs1 in ranked after everyone else had died. It was always clearly the better and quicker player who won.

 

The HP difference might make a difference when the acid hits. But thats why I dislike the acid. It also leads to weird other symptoms like dps beinging tank-gear and -stims in ranked just for the acid .

 

It is somehow weird that I argue against the OP here, while I have the same demand.

 

I do it because I think that skill already outplays gear. And for two reasons I don't like the argumentation here:

 

1. It implies that someone who gets "destroyed" can still consider himself a very good player who is just not lucky enough to get gear from crates. This is an excuse. You can lose a close fight due to gear but it doesn't explain why you get destroyed.

 

2. It imples that all good players who peform well are actually just lucky to be blessed with good gear.

 

In SWTOR people often tend to rather copy the gear of a good player instead of their playstyle and this leads to people resisting to improve their class knowledge which is a real pain for PvPers like us or for people who do random ops or fps.

 

This also lead to biowares idea if binding people to the game by implementing a gear grind.

 

When people see me performing well, I am often asked why I use so much alacrity and precision. So they obviosly inspect my gear and see it as the main source of my dps. The answer is always: "I never thought about that yet, I just wear whats in the crates!"

 

Rarely someone asks me what actually matters: what do you do that I don't do or do wrong? Once someone asked me that: after 30 mins he doubled his dps because his energy management before was so bad. And he didn't even know what deff-proccs are linked to his abilities.

 

I think I am repeating myself here, but before thinking about gearing or even minmaxing, you should spend the time to keybind ALL abilities (even medpac and - almost nobody does it- your regenaration. This can save you a second of searching in ranked, when you just got out of fight and need to heal as fast as possible.)

 

If your keybinds are perfect and your playstyle is smooth and you never waste more than a GCD between two abilities, you can start to go deep into gearing. Before, gear will just be a cosmetic thing that won't change your experience that much.

[jedcjedcjedc]

1. It implies that someone who gets "destroyed" can still consider himself a very good player who is just not lucky enough to get gear from crates. This is an excuse.

This guy gets it. That's pretty much why I have it in my sig, lol.

[Sith-Viscera]

If you go against a group of similar skilled players who all have 242 and you have 220s, you will lose, end of story, their damage / healing / mitigation will be much MUCH higher than yours.

 

THIS PERSON IS SO RIGHT! a week ago b4 my healer sorc got some 234 gear and had 228 gear i couldnt do a damned thing against my enemies with 240 or 242 gear on, now i was flamed by my team mates and told its your fault that we lost, come to find out after i offered up my gear a couple other said they had less then i did. LOL really and its my fault? Um No it all our faults for having less gear then our enemies. As long as i can play against people with same type of gear or less i do great but gear a few levels higher, NOT SO MUCH.

 

So stop blaming people they dont know how to play or they are inadequate, its just the gear they have on that is inadequate, in most cases, i admit some do not know how to play or they are noobs. But with that said we should still be understanding of that. We all was that at one time or another.

[mike_carton]

At least i agree on that.

But gear difference is real, the "10" in rating(is not 10 in stats) difference translate in average 5% to 7%+ in several stats. So someone with more HP, that hits you for more (AND even MORE on crits) has an advantage of arround 15% at the very least. Of course, player skills still are the more important aspect, but gear gives an edge. The outcome in a 1v1 may only change in relatively close fights.

 

And the problem with PvP is not just gear. The incredible amount of Mercs is just sad. Combined with the general class imbalance and incredible bad distribution of teams you have a very poor PvP experience when all those factors combine in several WZ in a row.

 

These are very important points to undertand as stated in above post:

 

1. Compare (1 v 1) or (2 v 1) situations that are common but assume approximately equal skill. Don't assume an idiot in 242s and a genius in 236s

 

2. Smal differences in total stat pool affect HP, Damage, Critical Damage even more, Alacrity (therefore damage again) and so on thereby adding up the difference.

 

3. Similarly, tier BiS gear will have the right stat distribution even if the total stat budget might be same or close to non-BiS gear. This impacts the effective difference between the players

 

4. Add class class imbalance to everything else

 

5. Premade teams running against Solo PUGs

Edited March 5, 2017 by mike_carton

[Sith-Viscera]

I also like to say, the main reason for the devs doing pvp this way now? IS to give those lesser PvPers a chance to hop in game and play too, where b4 on the old systems they wouldnt. And in all honesty, Every one that PAYS a Sub should be able to play any part of this game with out feeling like they are doing something wrong.

 

People get so mad in Ratings PVP Like its their Career thats on the line if they dont win and then when they get a lose, they blame everyone but them selves. Perhaps communicate your ideas better and maybe the team would work better together. Remember, No one can win them all. IF you are some one thst has literally never lost a PVP game match in swtor you better have proof and then send it to Guinness book of world records and THEN Start, a gaming career. Until then, chillax and just play your game the best that you can and have fun. Because having so much animosity all the damn time towards others doesn't do no one any good.

 

OK, i am done, just trying to get every one to get along is all. There is enough craziness in the world with out being crazy in a, What suppose to be a FUN Online game.

 

Peace & Take Care & Be Well To All.........

[mike_carton]

...

I just refuse to believe ...

...

I also refuse to believe ...

 

Is there any further reason to discuss anything with this person? Or to read anything they write? Not for me.

[mmmbuddah]

I also like to say, the main reason for the devs doing pvp this way now? IS to give those lesser PvPers a chance to hop in game and play too, where b4 on the old systems they wouldnt. And in all honesty, Every one that PAYS a Sub should be able to play any part of this game with out feeling like they are doing something wrong.

 

People get so mad in Ratings PVP Like its their Career thats on the line if they dont win and then when they get a lose, they blame everyone but them selves. Perhaps communicate your ideas better and maybe the team would work better together. Remember, No one can win them all. IF you are some one thst has literally never lost a PVP game match in swtor you better have proof and then send it to Guinness book of world records and THEN Start, a gaming career. Until then, chillax and just play your game the best that you can and have fun. Because having so much animosity all the damn time towards others doesn't do no one any good.

 

OK, i am done, just trying to get every one to get along is all. There is enough craziness in the world with out being crazy in a, What suppose to be a FUN Online game.

 

Peace & Take Care & Be Well To All.........

 

The old way you could get a full set of starter pvp gear in less than a few hours. Now you have to play for WEEKS to get a full set of BIS gear.....

[Bobby_McDonald]

Is there any further reason to discuss anything with this person? Or to read anything they write? Not for me.

 

Sorry for using the wrong wording. Maybe you go better with

 

"It is not true that...

 

It is not true that..."

 

Sorry to tell you that not gear is the problem some just get destroyed over and over in PvP. This is a wrong assumption, a wrong "belief" to use my own wrong wording.

 

No one gets destroyed for gear reason. You lose a very close 1 vs 1 for gear reasons yes, but no one gets destroyed for it. And thats why I argue here, because I am reading that people are not talking about close 1vs1 but about being crushed, which cannot be a gear problem

 

But still I want Bioware to end this discussion by just applying 250 Bolster for everyone again. According to some, then PvP must be balanced and no teams get destroyed anymore.

 

I tell you the skill gap stays the same and the skill gal is the reason that some get destroyed, especially if skilled players are grouping in premades.

[Savej]

There's always been and always will be people complaining about "gear" but when gear isn't a factor and there's no other reward to take its place, people won't play at all. Look at ranked - MUCH more active this season than last (possibly more active than any season after the first). And don't say "people can get gear for pve" - most people that pvp regularly will see that as an insult at best. When gear isn't a factor the queues will die - most people won't have anything to grind for and they won't. If you care about PVPing in an MMO, just get the gear.

[themachinemann]

I only pvp and have 30+ alts which I play. I enjoy playing all my alts, so this new gearing regime is preventing me from playing them at lvl 70.

this is the strangest thing about the system; they actively encouraged gearing more alts for the past few years, best seen by all the changes to leveling and the dvl event legendary status, and then take that away. Not that I disagree with their aims at revitalizing progression; but the method is contradictory.

 

Pvp should only ever be about skill vs skill. This new system is stupid.

I took a two and half month break when 5.0 was released in the hope they would make some adjustments to the system. But I come back and find they did nothing meaningful and ontop of that they nerf Bolster back lower to create an even bigger gear gap for the haves and the have nots.

this is the discussion that needs to be had; the inclusion of gear progression as an incentive for pvp. Does it serve a purpose, and how does it impact different aspects of the game (population, revenue, satisfaction, etc). Firstly I'll just point out I much prefer this system to seeing people run around with 0 expertise and not changing anything even after you explain it to them.

Be careful not to overstate the issue tho; pvp is mostly still about skill, this isn't 8v8 ranked. I see mercs dying in ranked with <200k damage taken (missing big cd's) on the "good" pvp servers. On most servers, there are a lot of new players doing <2k dps and experienced players pushing 4k. Swap the gear and it's not gonna change much. Skill accounts for thousands of dps. Augmenting your gear accounts for hundreds. 242 vs 232 isn't a big deal compared to these. In the rare games of equal skill, yes a gear difference can account for the result, but they did more work for it - so should they have an advantage? going back to our progression/incentive question

 

Some people have been lucky and got 242 gear relatively quickly with not much effort. While others have put in twice as many hours and don't have one piece. That isn't fair and does not reward people equally for the time spent grinding this system.

"not much effort" is a joke right?

Of course it all depends on your definition of effort, for some people 2 hours/day is a lot, some people do 10+. They use strategies to increase efficiency of gearing, that's great. Some people clear NiM raids regularly and should be rewarded for that more than SM runners. Should that carry over to pvp? I don't have a problem with it, others do. Good point for discussion.

[Icykill_]

I absolutely agree that PvP should be about skill (including teamwork) only. Thats why I loved the bolster in 5.0 because realy no one cared about gear. It was also better than 4.0 because back then there was the low-expertise-problem of some players.

 

I also agree that there is a small gear gap currently

 

Bobby, as someone who has played this game from launch and even had a "How to gear for pvp" thread that was stickied to the top of this forum prior to 5.0, I can categorically say Bolster is far worse in 5.0 than 4.0.

Bolster was near perfect in 4.0. The problem was people didn't understand expertise and they didn't bother to come to forums to find out or even listen to pvpers when they tried to explain it in game.

All people had to do if they didn't have pvp gear was to wear 190 lvl gear and no higher. It was extremely easy to understand, but there was no Bioware communication about it and the majority of pve people would wear high lvl pve gear and were too arrogant to listen to people trying to help them. I tried to help more than most because of my gearing thread and the fact that I wanted people to have a good time and gear wouldn't be an issue. So I would look at people's gear every match and if I saw they didn't gear right I would pm them politely to offer my help. I got so many stuf you and F off and mind your own business etc.. (I think you get the idea).. I would say 1 in every 20 would listen and accept my help. Over the years I've approached 100s of players to help with gearing and only about 5% would listen. Most were arrogent sh*ts

There is now a substantial gear gap since Bioware nerfed Bolster down to 232. Prior to that, Bolster was still working in 5.0 and in a similar fashion to 4:0 where there used to be a minimal gear gap. People in 4.0 could gear very fast especially if they had accumulated Comms before lvl 65 or could transfer them from another Alt. Even if people hadn't accumulated them, a casual player could fully gear in entry lvl gear in two weeks or less. But even then the difference between reg gear and Ranked gear was extremely small and was only ever noticeable in Ranked where a lot of people were so close in skill that the minimal stats could add a small amount to the outcome.

I believe Biowares decision to nerf Bolster shortly after 5.0 was because they could see that pvpers weren't being affected enough by the RNG CXP system. They wanted to make us grind more in the hope we would play more. But they got it completely backwards. Pvpers play to pvp, we don't really give a crap about gear. Making us grind gear to close a gear gap that they then decided to imposed on us is actually going to make us play less. We would have played the same amount of time pvping regardless of gear. A gear gap was only ever going to piss us off.

You may feel there is no gear gap, ok, that's good for you. Maybe youre skilled enough to make up the difference, maybe you already have 242 gear and can't see a problem. But new pvpers or people learning to pvp just aren't able to adapt to a gap as large as this.

I'm a skilled enough player that when I went from lvl 69 to 70 I was able to adjust ok till I could get some better armor. But I lost about 30% of my damage output before I could gear up from my 208 pvp gear. Bolster is supposed to take gear up to 232, but I can tell you it doesn't. Technically 230 gear shouldn't be much different to 208 gear because both are supposed to Bolster to 232. But the difference in my damage out put was up to 30%.

Do I find it difficult fighting people in 242 gear when I'm in 230. Not so much because most players these days don't have the same skill level as the players who have left game. So I'm able to overcome the gear vs skill problem a bit easier than some. I still come up against a few players that give me a run for my money but if I come up against someone of equal skill then they will win 99% of the time.

That is not what pvp is about and any pure pvper will agree that gear should not be an deciding factor.

Now they want to add a whole other lvl of gear above 242. What is going to happen then? Even people like me in 230 gear won't be able to compete against that unless they raise Bolster again. Which begs the question, why even nerf it to start with. The only solution is to return Bolster to the lvl it was at before the nerf, which I believe was something like 250. By doing this it will allow that gap to close up some. There will still be a gap, but it won't be as big and people will still be able to strive to min/max their gear with higher lvl items to try and give them a smallish edge, but that edge won't be as big and will be similar to what it was in 4.0.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Icykill_