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Bolster, A serious Question


keedo

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I'm not trying to sound sarcastic in any respect, but I'm just curios about the purpose of bolster. (not the mechanic but why it was implemented). The system works great for the lower level brackets, but not at 55.

 

Last I checked all the same PvP gear was available to everyone, it's just a matter of grinding it out. In my opinion PvP shouldn't need to be fair. If you want better gear you should have to work for it and do a little theory crafting to optimize it. If this sounds like too much trouble then you'll just be forced to compensate by outplaying your opponents. PvP should be difficult, challenging, and competitive.

 

Real competition only requires everyone to follow the same rules, which has been grossly mistaken with everyone given an equal standing. It's sad that everyone seemingly expects a freaking handout these days, but in my opinion if you want something you should have to work for it even if it's just a video game.

 

I've noticed the majority of people for bolster do not spend the majority of their gameplay actually playing PvP, and I'm also quite certain that the majority of these people have never seriously played a game on any competitive level.

 

Bolster essentially takes any work out of being able to PvP at a top tier level. It's important to look at bolster from a PvE perspective, what if there was a bolster for PvE?

 

There are different difficulties to PvE: Story Mode, Hard Mode, and Nightmare. In general you need gear and the experience of a previous difficulty before advancing to the next level. Now let's say a bolster is implemented that would allow players to just go do nightmare using greens and some story mode gear. Sounds like a stupid idea right, where's the fun in that? Don't you want to work through the progression and want some satisfaction of accomplishment for the time you've spent playing?

 

For some of you who may be thinking, "Oh but PvP is totally different and doesn't have scaled difficulties!". Rated games also use the same bolster as the standard warzones.

 

I understand what bolster does and I can see an argument for having it for those seeking instant gratification, but please do not be mistaken by saying it makes PvP more competitive. Bolster makes PvP over simplified and less competitive, and quite frankly not much different from an arcade game.

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I'm training up my Mercenary at the moment and I've basically being doing PvP since level 10, currently level 27 (got my PvP level 20 set and two 40 sets already) and I think that the tier 1 PvP bracket is great. I've recently got a few chars to level 55 and bolster just completely ruins the top-end bracket. I can't even put my finger on what the problem is, it just feels a whole lot worse.

What makes me sad is the fact that there's basically no response from devs saying that they are working on a fix. It's as if they think it's working fine and just shrugging off everything that everyone else is saying.

It's a shame really.

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I agree that you should work towards being a better player and what not, but majority of people don't actually WANT to be better players. They want everyone else to be on their level of skill (which obviously isn't very high to begin with) so they can feel as if they're actually good. I'll tell you right now, I almost NEVER pvp'd at 50 before 2.0, it was boring to me because everyone else already had the top tier gear and getting steam rolled is not fun at all. At least in a game like COD of gears of war or something, everyone was pretty much on the same level.

 

You could earn better weapons with increasing levels, but it didn't matter as long as you had the skill to be better than your opponents. That really isn't the case with this game, I highly doubt this game will ever be in a competitive scene unless BW wants it to be, which is why PVP really isn't a huge focus for them at this moment. However now with how bolster works, I (being a casual with pvp) can compete with people with better gear. I'm not a bad player, but getting steam rolled isn't my thought of a good time.

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Without Bolster fresh 55's would roll into Wz's and become a 10k crit node with a universal socket.

That is of course what the anti-bolster brigade want soooooooooooooo badly but it would kill the new entries to pvp and there would be no new players to match the natural attrition rate from the game and pvp would basically die.

It is here they have spent money on it and for better or worse it is staying.

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Without Bolster fresh 55's would roll into Wz's and become a 10k crit node with a universal socket.

That is of course what the anti-bolster brigade want soooooooooooooo badly but it would kill the new entries to pvp and there would be no new players to match the natural attrition rate from the game and pvp would basically die.

It is here they have spent money on it and for better or worse it is staying.

 

if you're a fresh 55 without nearly full partisan, then you're doing it wrong and deserve to get two shot.

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Rather than stating just flat out that a fresh 55 would deserve it; a broken bolster system was not needed. Just a recruit set that actually did what it was set out to do in being within 5% stat wise of the 1st tier PvP gear (used to be WH, now partisan) Hell; put it within 2 or 3% or to where it would be 5% difference counting when the other PvP gear is augmented. Would give you more than a fair enough shot, yet wouldn't coddle you forever nor allow for exploting the bolster system brought. Edited by Technohic
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Simplifying the issue somewhat, there are two philosophies when it comes to MMO PVP.

 

1. Gear should make a difference. Players should be able to upgrade / progress their characters as you would in every other aspect of the game. Optimising gear is part of the tactical aspect of PVP.

 

2. Gear should make no difference at all, players should have equal power and the only difference between them should be skill. PVP should therefore be more like competetive PVP in other games.

 

Bolster is a somewhat awkward attempt to please both sets of people. Gear is kind of equalised but there is still better gear to have for those who want it. Even though Recruit gear was available not everyone used it prior to 2.0 and while you could say "Well, screw those guys" - many of us end up on teams with those people.

 

This is not to defend their implementation of bolster however, it seems a bit too complex and the mess we've had doesn't surprise me. It's not clear to me why didn't just go for a "minimum stats" approach where people are boosted up (if necessary) to a set level instead of having seemingly complex multipliers for each item (which is going to be prone to error / exploit).

 

Because of the way expertise works now you more or less have to have either a bolster system or a new recruit gear. I've had a couple of open world PVP incidents since the update and people with no expertise don't have a chance vs. people in full PVP gear. It was obviously never an even match up, but now it's comical.

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  • 1 month later...
Bolster sounds good at first. i saw a lot of times ppl not using recruit gear in pvp. That used to make me mad. Bolster should only icnrese the exp. 1600 if u have less. But now after last patch my Marauder in WH gear have more exp than wearing lvl 52-54 purples.....cmon that is stupid.....
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As other's have stated:

 

There's about two theories when it comes to PvP, MMO's, and Gear.

 

The first is the traditional MMO sense. You level a character, you up their skills, you apply their points, you build your gear. It's very much about character building and investment. The idea in fairness is that everyone has the same tools, it's the person who configures them the best (and a healthy dose of hand-eye coordination) is the better player. Everyone is equal at the starting point and the end point, or falls somewhere in the middle.

 

Then there's the Casual approach. PvP should be about -skill.- If I've got faster twitch reactions, then I win! *Cough* I mean, if I'm more skilled, etc... The idea of fairness is that everyone is equalized match by match, no matter how invested they are in the game.

 

Unfortunately, since PvP involves competition, it's difficult to say if the traditional MMO approach to other content can really fit or not. Both approaches are reasonable in terms of fairness but...

 

If there's a place called Poker Palace, but all you can play is Go Fish... I think I might wonder why the hell it's called Poker Palace!

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Without Bolster fresh 55's would roll into Wz's and become a 10k crit node with a universal socket.

That is of course what the anti-bolster brigade want soooooooooooooo badly but it would kill the new entries to pvp and there would be no new players to match the natural attrition rate from the game and pvp would basically die.

It is here they have spent money on it and for better or worse it is staying.

 

Fresh 55's roll into WZs now and get hit for 10K crits. I know because I nailed a fresh sorcerer with 23K health with a 10.4K Demo Round.

 

So what, exactly, did bolster do for him/her besides give a false sense of adequacy?

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Jesus christ some of the responses.

 

Not wanting bolster does not mean you want to steamroll people. Just boost the min up to close of the top gear. Right now bolster is hurting people that do not know what the hell is going on.

 

They do not allow you to check bolster stats for one reason.... It's ****ed up and it would be apparent for people how to game the system. Right now people are gaming it but its not widespread. IF they showed bolster outside of a WZ you would see 50 threads right now about how its messed up in one way or another.

 

 

Just have min stats for people that do not have good gear... not a hidden mechanic that no one wants.

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