If you rely on gear, you're not a PVPer...

No one knows yet. People are just overreacting.

All we know is there will not be as much of a gear differential between a newish 50 and a geared 50.

So either they will change expertise or they will make an entry level pvp set. Since this was all said in a crafting thread i assume there will be mods with expertise at the very least and i wouldn't be surprised if expertise is reworked some.

Also it sounds like these changes are not coming anytime soon.

Caveat Emptor. Perhaps they just expect people to understand what they're getting themselves into when they buy the game. Perhaps that's unfair.

Again, fallacy. There is no possible way to accurately measure a players "skill".

Honestly, posing as a "true pvper" is just silly. There is no such thing as a false pvper. Professional pvpers are another matter. They play rts or fps games, not games that are built around a leveling system where you progress and build your character to become more powerful.

Yes, a degree of responsibility lies with the consumer, but I think that the extremely different sub games that are CvC and PvP (the only similarity is that the player's avatar engages the avatar of other players) demand an honest assessment by the developer of what they have created in order to avoid this type of severe disconnect between perception and reality.

I think by "true PvPer" he means people that actually care about competive (and I don't mean Pro) PvP. They want to have relatively balanced fights and compete with one another.

And if you give players same/similar gear, wouldn't the winner be normally the most skilled? There are certainly games where this is the case (Darkfall, GW, Eve).

Honestly, the minute I heard there was going to be pvp gear, I knew I needed to be one of the first people to get it. That's why I started playing in early access. There is no real difference between this game and my former game (Aion) in that sense. In Aion, however, it was possible to farm abyss points (the equivalent of commendations) through PvE. Because I got into Aion late I spent about a month just PvEing before I ever tried to PvP. The price that a latecomer pays for being late is that they will be behind those who got into the game before them. To me, though, that's part of the allure of this sort of game. To others it just seems unfair.

Wait, the coming changes that are gonna buff lower level 50 pvp gear is welcomed by people who say "if you rely on gear, you're not a pvp'er" ?

Makes sense to me...

Being a good pvper in a MMOrpg also means you need to understand how your character's stats work with each others, and how to get the highest profit from tweaking it.
A good undertanding of how your class works with numbers, in other words.

Now, with the current system, you get awesome ready to go numbers by just mindlessly grinding 'til you get a winning lottery ticket.
And then you get the upper hand in fights by just sitting there until RNGs tell you ok, now winning will be easier for you.

This has nothing to do with hard work nor skills, it's just a mix of lazyness and hours spent waiting for it.

Of course some battlemaster geared players are actually skilled players, this is not what is being questionned here.

I personnaly want a system that requires both skills AND extended knowledge and tweaking of your character sheet (numbers + class skills) to get the maximum advantages out of it.

Thus, i would love to see all the gear (as in uniforms) being just about cosmetics (lots of look customization is always good), but a deeply reworked modding system that allows players to tweak armoring / mods / enhancement pieces, etc, still depending on the valor rank to unlock acces to higher mod opportunities.

For instance, let's take an armoring mod.

Right now you will see, for exemple, a rated 108 armoring mod with 21 endurance and 28 willpower.

Maybe, we should start with a base number of 108 + 21 + 28 = 157.
157 points you have to allocate between armor, willpower, and endurance. Same goes once you get your hands on +surge, +crits, etc mods.
Instead of having players just waiting to find a better version of something already made and thought for them.
I mean, what is the point if everything is all set and ready, removing numbers would do the same since right now they are just here for cosmetics, since they will all be the same in the end.

As many here say, you can't ask a RPG to be a FPS, but there is a nuance to be made here, a RPG should never give away ready to go gear to players without them having any clue on how every stat work with each others and how they affect your class.
It's way too easy, too simple, doesn't require anyone to do anything else than smash buttons since anything related to how you are geared and stat'd was thought for you.

Make the game skill based but have people actually care for their character sheet.

They are making the gear gap between players closer. How is this something difficult to comprehend?

As long as an element of skill exists it's still PvP in my book. Ask yourself:
In spite of gear can...

-A new 50 beat a centurion geared character? Yes.
-A centurion geared character beat a champion geared character? Yes.
-A champion geared character beat a battlemaster? Yes.

And it's not nearly so restrictive in reality. The "gear is not pvp" mindset can also be used against the people who have it. Take away gear, you know what happens? Now you have class based pvp and still not skill-based, where one class suddenly dominates others and is beaten by their counter. You just have a giant round robin instead of competition in your book.

Show me a game that you think has only skill-based pvp, and I'll show you a way to gain an advantage in it seperate from skill every time.

So why bother making the argument? At least with multiple factors contributing other than the gear (skill, class, terrain, team), the role gear plays in determining a contest is reduced.