PvP Brackets, and the silly gearing abuse of mid-level

[supertimtaf]

Hey y'all, so I wanted to change things here, not talk about the boooring stuff like premades, class being unbalanced at max level and the likes... 

Okay so truth be told, I sinned a bit, and made an alt, rep-side and stuff. So I did what all of us pvp-loving folks would do, and queued for PvP, and as the levels went on I did notice a funny thing in regards to PvP brackets.

The current state of PvP is a bit weird, as right now it's a bit like this :

- low-level pvp is, strangely, a lot of fun due to how weird everything is, and I would say that it's an overall good experience. I'd even say it's better than max lvl pvp right now.
- Max level pvp is... Well it's what it is. Still fun, relatively balanced provided you know what to do, (or bring a few friends in if you suck)

Then we have *mid bracket*. 

Mid bracket is an absolute mess atm, because on one side it can go *very well*, or absolutely destroy you. Which is weird because while I did get my ass kicked in max level or low level, never was it as brutal as it did on mid-tier brackets.

So why is it a mess ? Well because for some weird reasons, you have a bunch of scrubs, which all unsubbed at lvl 75, and are running there with the best gear available, with augments, set bonuses and the likes. They don't do anything else than just queue for mid brackets with a full set bonus to stomp on anyone who's not geared like them. Since they're unsubbed, they're also guaranteed to not level up (at least I'm fairly sure that's how it works), so their set bonuses never expire, and they can keep stomping on and on all the lower level guys.

I'm not against a bit of gearing advantage here and there, but this strongly feels like an oversight from someone at Broadsword.
While not as important as the balance and fun factor of lvl 80 PvP, I do believe that keeping mid brackets in this state will harm the game in the long run, if you can't make it a fun experience for new/inexperienced players.

So can we all agree that maybe set bonuses should be disabled for mid level PvP bracket only ? 

 

Idk, maybe I'm the only one who has seen these unsubbed weirdos but so far they've been kinda ruining the mood. I'm not talking "using a seismo-grenade on a warzone" mood, that's okay and just sad to see, but just abusing what feels like an oversight that clearly gives an unfair advantage to a specific group of players.

[HaoZhao]

Set bonuses were never the problem here and disabling them won't change a thing. They're active for literally 1 level and anyone from 76 to 79 in min-maxed gear have almost the same output. The problem is level 75+ players in perfect gold 306 mods + 300 augments going up against level 50 players in green fleet mods who have been bolstered for 40K extra HP. It's a joke. I've played like this and I've had three players beating on me in arenas and struggle to scratch me because of my perfect gear. There's two solutions for this:

1) Remove gear entirely from lowbies and mids. Everyone has fixed stats based on their level and discipline. 

2) Change the tiers. 10-44, 45-74, 75-80. Reintroduce bolster into 80 WZs so that everyone gets boosted up to at least green 325.

[Darkestmonty]

simple design - technical nightmare

• one level bracket, level 80
• all characters are boosted to level 80 for PvP
• all characters have access to all skills for PvP
• all characters have access to all implants and tacticals for PvP
• all characters have set stats based on their class for PvP

 

Pros:

• eliminates level brackets so there is only one queue for Warzones and one queue for Arena
• shorter queue times for everyone
• gear is no longer an issue
• seasoned players won't be effected outside of set stats

 

Cons:

• need an area to set up skills and gear outside of PvP
• a nightmare to program
• new player adapting to PvP with all the skills and gear can be intimidating.

 

FFXIV uses this system and it's honestly the best system if you want pvp to be more skill based and less gear based. The current system, of three brackets, 10-44, 45-79, and 80, will never be fair even if gear is standardized. A level 45 doesn't have the same skills a level 78 does.

 

Edited April 30 by Darkestmonty

[supertimtaf]

15 minutes ago, HaoZhao said:

They're active for literally 1 level

The issue being that if you unsub you never level up, meaning that you keep them active as long as you don't sub to never leave lvl 75
 

16 minutes ago, HaoZhao said:

The problem is level 75+ players in perfect gold 306 mods + 300 augments going up against level 50 players in green fleet mods who have been bolstered for 40K extra HP. It's a joke.

Absolutely agree on this, either bolster is not working well enough, or there just shouldn't be that much of a gap between lvl 75+ and lvl 50 players. The ability gap is already quite important as most of the strongest passives of roughly every class are on high levels, adding the gear on top of that makes it just unfair and unfun.

Maybe apply the same logic as with lvl max bracket then ? Lower the gear of players who are too well equipped ? That shouldn't be that hard to pull off... Right ?

[supertimtaf]

17 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

FFXIV uses this system and it's honestly the best system if you want pvp to be more skill based and less gear based. The current system, of three brackets, 10-44, 45-79, and 80, will never be fair even if gear is standardized. A level 45 doesn't have the same skills a level 78 does.

While I won't praise too much XIV pvp because it's far from being an enjoyable experience, the way they handle gear and stats is clearly much easier to balance for devs, and more fair to players.

I would say however that swtor does quite a decent job *at least in low bracket* to make it feel like you're having an impact, be it at lvl 20 or 40. So I'd say it's definitely possible to lower the gap between the lvl 75+ players and the lvl 50 players by a fair margin just by suppressing the gear advantage, no ?

[Darkestmonty]

19 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

While I won't praise too much XIV pvp because it's far from being an enjoyable experience, the way they handle gear and stats is clearly much easier to balance for devs, and more fair to players.

I would say however that swtor does quite a decent job *at least in low bracket* to make it feel like you're having an impact, be it at lvl 20 or 40. So I'd say it's definitely possible to lower the gap between the lvl 75+ players and the lvl 50 players by a fair margin just by suppressing the gear advantage, no ?

there were more brackets but as our player base shrunk they combined the different mid brackets into the two we have now.

Access to all skills I would say is more important than gear because as least with gear players are bolstered. There is no bolstering for CC breaks, reflects, and escapes players get near 80

Edited May 1 by Darkestmonty

[HaoZhao]

1 hour ago, Darkestmonty said:

simple design - technical nightmare

• one level bracket, level 80
• all characters are boosted to level 80 for PvP
• all characters have access to all skills for PvP
• all characters have access to all implants and tacticals for PvP
• all characters have set stats based on their class for PvP

 

Pros:

• eliminates level brackets so there is only one queue for Warzones and one queue for Arena
• shorter queue times for everyone
• gear is no longer an issue
• seasoned players won't be effected outside of set stats

 

Cons:

• need an area to set up skills and gear outside of PvP
• a nightmare to program
• new player adapting to PvP with all the skills and gear can be intimidating.

 

FFXIV uses this system and it's honestly the best system if you want pvp to be more skill based and less gear based. The current system, of three brackets, 10-44, 45-79, and 80, will never be fair even if gear is standardized. A level 45 doesn't have the same skills a level 78 does.

 

If FF14's PVP was good, 99% of us wouldn't still be here. FF14's PVP is probably the worst part of that game. You get pruned down to like 10 abilities, all of which work differently than they do in PVE, forcing you to learn every class twice. It's gross and it's completely unwelcoming to newcomers.

Now imaging being new to SWTOR. You enter PVP and you're told to set up almost three full bars for abilities and then figure out how to use them. Lowbie PVP is supposed to be part of the learning experience, not end game. There's a specific reason why you don't start with every ability in the game at level 1.

[Darkestmonty]

16 minutes ago, HaoZhao said:

If FF14's PVP was good, 99% of us wouldn't still be here. FF14's PVP is probably the worst part of that game. You get pruned down to like 10 abilities, all of which work differently than they do in PVE, forcing you to learn every class twice. It's gross and it's completely unwelcoming to newcomers.

Now imaging being new to SWTOR. You enter PVP and you're told to set up almost three full bars for abilities and then figure out how to use them. Lowbie PVP is supposed to be part of the learning experience, not end game. There's a specific reason why you don't start with every ability in the game at level 1.

The only aspect of FFXIVs pvp that is better is they only have one pvp bracket and everyone has access to the same skills and gear.

[supertimtaf]

1 hour ago, Darkestmonty said:

Access to all skills I would say is more important than gear because as least with gear players are bolstered.

I'd agree if I didn't already knew how terrible 80% of the playerbase is
They already struggle to use two skills in low-level pvp, I doubt giving them all their skills would be a better idea.
Making a separate toolkit for PvP is out of the question as well, due to how limited the dev ressources are. So our best bet would be to find another solution 😕

Edited May 1 by supertimtaf

[Darkestmonty]

Just now, supertimtaf said:

I'd agree if I didn't already knew how terrible 80% of the playerbase is
They already struggle to use two skills in low-level pvp, I doubt giving them all their skills would be a better idea.
Making a separate toolkit for PvP is out of the question as well, due to how limited the dev ressources are.

Nothing is going to fix a players lack of skill if they refuse to learn, but not having access to a large portion of skills due to being a lower level and the lack tacticals is something impossible to overcome no matter your skill level.

[supertimtaf]

20 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

Nothing is going to fix a players lack of skill if they refuse to learn, but not having access to a large portion of skills due to being a lower level and the lack tacticals is something impossible to overcome no matter your skill level.

I'd say that for now, gear gap, set bonuses and tacticals are a bigger factor to this difference than abilities. If abilities were that much of a difference, low level pvp wouldn't be fun either, and yet you'd be surprised at how much a lvl 15/20 character can do in here.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying that abilities don't have an impact in progression and on your odds of winning, but tacticals, set bonuses, augments and full legendary gear is much, much more of an issue for mid-level *at the moment*.

[Liarrrra]

3 hours ago, Darkestmonty said:

Nothing is going to fix a players' lack of skill if they refuse to learn, not having access to tacticals is something impossible to overcome no matter your skill level.

Abilities are not as necessary.

[Darkestmonty]

3 hours ago, Liarrrra said:

Abilities are not as necessary.

a level 45 no matter what gear they are wearing can not compete against a level 79 with all their abilities. Those late level abilities boost damage, movement capabilities, and shielding so much it over shadows 40k-50k health difference.

[Liarrrra]

@Darkestmonty

A level 45 can compete with level 79s if they have gear that equals their current level. Abilities you can counter, if you know how. However there are indeed cases that may prove troublesome, especially if taking into consideration objective play. On that note, be it a warzone or an arena, you're not alone. You have other people with you. Competent players will make up for what you lack by sharing the heat with you. What I'm more worried about nowadays, however, are said 'competent players.'

 

That said, you're not wrong, without competent players that know what they're doing, abilities become an issue. 

As to how to 'fix' this, I do not know.

[Darkestmonty]

a level 45 is missing all of these abilities which increase damage, movement, shields, etc. That's over half their skill tree.

Even if a level 45 was bolstered to the same iLVL as a level 79 they would not be able to compete. Those late stage abilities make a class, improve survivability, and greatly enhance damage as they synergize with tacticals.

Edited May 1 by Darkestmonty

[tsteenburg]

There is also the issue of people equipping a higher score weapon than their average gear score then bolster super charges it.

[supertimtaf]

9 hours ago, Darkestmonty said:

Even if a level 45 was bolstered to the same iLVL as a level 79 they would not be able to compete.

I know the feeling you're thinking of, because it happens a lot when doing mid or low pvp
Right now I'm leveling up a dot gunslinger, and more often than not, when I die I'm always like "damn, wish I had that roll, I'd have won that 2v1" or stuff like that. It happens *all the time* :')
However, I am also indeed aware than more often than not, these "close calls" are indeed... Well, close calls. Maybe if I had backed up to my team, played less agressive and tried to solo that pylon all by myself. Most likely, this is more a matter of adapting your way of playing rather than you missing an ability. I'm lvl 50 at the moment, and I take on any players that are under lvl 75 with ease. Same went for low level, with lvl 15 competing easily with lvl 30s and the likes. Bolster does *quite* the good job at making things feel equal UNLESS you're up against these lvl 75+ players, where then gear and set bonuses makes them a complete unkillable machine.

I had a huttball game just a bit before now, with *one* player being lvl 75 and abusing the hell out of this gearing issue (all gold gear, set bonuses, tactical, gold augments...)
We were also two snipers in this team, one engi and a dot. We were doing *really* well damage wise, at roughly 3M+ each, and even then, that player singlehandedly did 7M+ damage by itself. Alone he was doing more than double the damage of the two best players of the game, just because of that gear. Ofc he carried the game because the other team couldn't even hope to compete. And it wasn't because of abilities, the other group had a lvl 79 marauder who was a pushover to kill.

Now, you can go and say "hey this was all skill he was just way more skilled than you all"
Truth be told, he sucked. cooldown usages were far from good, and the few times where he got in danger was for dumb stuff like being outplayed by pushes in acid and stuff.
He just had *that* gear. And found the way to make it a permanent bonus due to Broadsword having forgotten this small issue.

Funniest thing is that he can't even answer here else he'd need to sub and wouldn't be able to exploit the hell out of this anymore 
 

8 hours ago, tsteenburg said:

There is also the issue of people equipping a higher score weapon than their average gear score then bolster super charges it.

Oh that I wasn't aware, thanks for the notice. Maybe pass that along to the dev team as well, idk who to ping for that. Maybe Jackie.
 

[supertimtaf]

11 hours ago, Liarrrra said:

That said, you're not wrong, without competent players that know what they're doing, abilities become an issue. 

As to how to 'fix' this, I do not know.

They started a bit the work on this. Overworld is less of a pushover (the brain-deceased word got censored by the forums  ) for leveling up for example, which helps in making players actually stop and think for one second instead of none at all.

Imo increasing the challenge of FPs (more damage coming in for example) and things like that would also help tremendously increasing the skill level of the average player leveling up a new character. Low level PvP is a really good introduction to PvP most of the time as well, mid level is the outlier in the bunch.

[Liarrrra]

2 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

increasing the challenge

Kotfe/kotet master mode was fun,.. alas I don't think increasing difficulty is in the cards rn. Devs want the game casual friendly, so that they can replace people that actually 'play' and 'enjoy' the game by new players that'll be gone next day.

[supertimtaf]

2 minutes ago, Liarrrra said:

Kotfe/kotet master mode was fun

Depends the period imo :'D
And the goal shouldn't be to "casualize" the game, just make a better introduction of its mechanics and gameplay elements to new players so they can dip their toes into harder content without being scared.

It still baffles me that we still can't queue for story mode operations without the need of a premade group (in the mind of the playerbase). That sucks, and shows how operations are scary for the majority of the playerbase even though they're clearly not.

[meddani]

you guys think mid brackets are unbalanced? (they are, no questions) still better than what we had at the end/middle of 6.X, lvl 10-74 in one bracket lol

[Liarrrra]

4 hours ago, meddani said:

you guys think mid brackets are unbalanced? (they are, no questions) still better than what we had at the end/middle of 6.X, lvl 10-74 in one bracket lol

Honestly wouldn't mind that. At least leveling had some reason to it. Now you do it simply because you must.. and anyways, we got bolster now :^) i'm SURE it'll save us all.

[Whaitwhutwalrus]

[supertimtaf]

3 hours ago, Liarrrra said:

and anyways, we got bolster now :^) i'm SURE it'll save us all.

It clearly doesn't solve everything
But it's still working much better than it used to, I can't deny that
Still not enough but that'll come with time... Once they have that one guy tasked with adding medpacks and adrenals to PvP season finally done with that daunting task... Maybe :v

Probably not

[Liarrrra]

29 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

Once they have that one guy tasked with adding medpacks and adrenals to PvP season finally done with that daunting task... Maybe :v

I'm sorry, the patch will be delayed instead of June 2024 to December 7153. Encountered an issue where adrenals don't split. 

 

Edit: it's year 5055 right now, I found out I forgot to press shift while splitting the adrenals.