What does the 1-49 bracket teach us about PVP gear?

If the new employee is more skilled at the job than the 20year vet, then why should the vet get the money? Just because he's been there longer?

I sometimes wonder--why not just have gear "bolstering" in L50 Warzones just as there is level bolstering in 1-49?

The way it would work is that everybody's stats would be different, based on the ratio of their own stats to each other. But, everyone would have the same total amount of stats.

So if a player had lots of endurance compared to other stats, then they'd have more hit points. But it would be comparative, not absolute.

This way, the min-maxers could still have fun trying to figure out the best possible ratio of stats to each other. But no matter how well you min-maxed, you would never be that much better or worse than anyone else. All stats would have caps to them, to prevent someone from wearing (for instance) one piece of gear and getting 100% expertise or something.

Sure, the gear progression would be a lot less important, but so what? People would still want the top level gear just because it's "cool", or because it has the perfect ratio of stats, or whatever.

Again, you are 100% wrong. As what you are describing above is not a "game" it's a "job".

I don't pay to have a job. I get paid by a job.

This is a game.

His runner/steroid analogy pwns you like a 10000 crit.

All that needs done (beyond a replacement of the horrible RNG bag system) is for Expertise to be replaced with more and more meaningful stats comparable to PvE (also, worthwhile crafting, but that'll never happen in a themepark anyways). In a gear-based, stat-based game, as much as personal skill makes a difference, your superiority of stats can still be even more impactful than your level of skill depending on factors such as class, build, and how designed the game is towards rewarding better stats. There's nothing inherently wrong with PvP gear in such a setup because it is QUITE stupid to lose so handedly to someone clearly inferior to your skill level solely due to the stat disparity. Losing cuz you don't PvE raid and there's no other available progression to even the playing field is exactly why PvP gear was ever introduced.

Character progression, and progression in general, is a staple of the MMO. This is especially true of themeparks because they consistently reward progression with a better character. Given SW:TOR's design, there's nothing wrong with PvP gear. What's wrong is Expertise. This is especially true given that the Bolster system rather effectively neutralizes the impact of gear and superior stats. Expertise is the same exact problem that once existed when some raider would decide to start PvPing and win only cuz of his gear. Now, players who DO PvP are punished because of the same reason, but only because they haven't PvP'd "enough", as well as those who seek to enter the PvP side of the game late. It's an arbitrarily separated progression line and has only gone from one broken side of the spectrum to another broken side. Now, with a PvP stat, your level of skill and gear is near meaningless without said stat, and by having that PvP stat you cannot jump into any meaningful PvE endgame. It's the same problem all over again.

Meaningful PVP would be nice. Something not just warzones over and over would be wonderful, especially open world related because this breeds community and roleplay. While the bolster system should and can be improved upon and further equalize things to reward skill over stats (especially if they introduce real open world and meaningful PvP), they need to replace Expertise entirely. It's the equivalent of (since some posters are using the FPS argument) giving players who do CTF all the time special rewards that reward playing CTF and giving them an advantage over others who are new or don't, and then doing the same thing for those who do deathmatch, wherein the rewards are mutually exclusive and worthless in the other game type. It'd be like giving a scout in TF2 two flag caps for the price of one just cuz he plays CTF a lot or a demoman immunity to sentries in assault maps just cause he plays that all the time, unfairly giving an advantage to a player just cuz they play a particular side of the same coin more often or exclusively over another.

tl;dr remove Expertise and normalize its stats compared to same-tier PvE gear and all will be well (oh, and the bag system, but that goes without saying).

Bioware thinks they are doing this for the story.

as simple as it gets, pvp is like any fight/war/etc the better your gear/weapons/etc the better your chances. Also getting pvp gear is a grind so yeah.

So you would throw away the 20 year vets experience and loyalty in favor of some new guy with no track record? All based on fairness? I wonder what world you live in, it clearly isn't a realistic one.

alts in the 10-49 bracket is fun mainly because gear doesn't matter as much. You can still feel some affect from stuff you have on, bought, found. But it doesn't feel OP it feels about right.

I wish ToR was more like that. I dont want to abolish gear progression i just wish we didn't have such insane stat inflation and gear basically being more important than spec/playstyle/skill.

Right now gear trumps all i would like to have gear matter just not as much as it currently does.

Just echoing this.

I put up with it in WoW because it was the only real MMO PvP on a grand scale, and it was a bad band-aid fix to PvE gear pwning people.

But at least in WoW you can get crafted starter stuff (and properly plan your gear gains out without RNG bag duplicate randomess crap).

Other MMOs should be coming up with a new and better way to do this, not copy a bad band-aid fix. Make NO gear matter (yes, make that PvE raid gear not matter) and have it come down to skill and teamwork. OMG, what? Skill and teamwork being the only determining factor in team-based PvP? Can't happen, can it?

I am going to put this in bold, as you continually ignore this point that causes your argument to fall on it's face. ANY "20 year veteran" in PVP who gets crushed by a rookie with "no track record" is not a skilled PVPer, and needed his gear crutch to win. In which case, ceasing to be someone who deserves any recognition. Any 20 year veteran of PVP SHOULD of developed strategies and reflexes that cause them to have an advantage over any rookie.