Why do fresh 50's have the same gear as me

Wrong. CONSOLE games are supposed to be work-free. You don't need to be 18 to play Xbox, or use a credit card to pay for it. They are for kids. Games with no challange are for kids. MMO's are supposed to be played for years, not months.

Also, your idea of "fun" isn't fun for people who have played MMO's for a long time. We understand what it takes to make a game succeed because we've seen so many come and go. If you don't think busting your *** and then being rewarded for your time isn't fun....then I suggest stick with your console games.

Oh, and why do you keep saying " Oh this quote again...." If it's being quoted often then maybe there's something to it. Just saying "oh this again" isn't much of an argument.

Few examples of this exist period. Very few games are skill vs skill. You want skill vs skill play chess. RTS games are more about Skill vs Skill than any other game type.. because RTS games are closest to Chess. They are also in the less popular categories because there isn't any progression to them. Yes Starcraft is a hugely popular game... for it being 1 game. But compare the numbers of people that play Starcraft vs other games and then you can see that it is still a small portion of the whole.

It is a inherent trait of MMORPG's that their PvP is more, or less, gear dependent. This comes from both the expectations of an MMORPG'er (where strive for better stats/levels/gear is the main purpose of the game for most) and the model that has been used by most of the developers up to today.

In almost every single MMORPG, the more resources you have and the more you have played, the more powerful is your character compared to others. Taking that away would drive most MMORPG players away, as if they want "true" PVP, they could always play Unreal Tournament, LoL, or CoD. The main problem is for the gear disparity not to eliminate any skill-dependency in fights - for example, by making the high tier sets too powerful or too different in power between one another. A higher tier set should be more powerful than a tier lower, but the stats should be optimized in such a way that you won't faceroll or one-shot every single other player below your gear level. At least that's my opinion on the subject.

I don't disagree with your assessment, I was merely point out that we don't actually have PvP in this game as actual PvP is not terribly popular. Most people like the gear crutch as it allows them to be rewarded for time spent instead of skill.

SOMEONE. WHO. GETS. IT!

-fuzz

I would just like to throw in my PoV on this subject.

While I do agree that gear disparity shouldn't be that much of a deciding factor I think Gear Progression is needed.

To all of you guys saying lets everyone have the same gear and now we have equal settings: That takes away alot of fun for me.

Let me clarify before people start screaming fair fight. One thing I enjoy alot about mmos is different gear setups, you can work for your own soft caps, prio stats over others etc and really try to make your character unique (especially in this game with mods, customs etc) although alot of people will choose to go cookie cutter specs I personly might prefer a heavy surge/expertise/power/whatever gear.
I really love the aspect of theocrafting my own needs for my character based setup (people I play consistently with) and try to tailor it to my needs.

Also the feeling for progression is what makes me play, why else would I subscribe to a game? Progression in my eyes on this model of game is based on gear. If you compare the games content PvE-wise vs PvP you can clearly see PvE is leading by a faaaaaar margin. Yet BW themselves said PvP attracted much more players then what they thought, this means they need a progression system for pvp. Aka rated, but part of rated is also setting up your team setups etc and itemization is a part of that.

grind != challenge

not sure if you were aware...this is an RPG....

PvE gear system isn't about time spent, its about RNG. Doesn't matter if I can clear the content in three hours or 20 hours per week. Its rng. I have been doing HM/NMM Ops for over three months and have yet to get full Rakata due to rng.

Plus, PvE tier system respects those tiers. Fresh 50 don't go jumping into HM EC. They have to pay their dues, and get the gear upgrades first in the content that matches their gear (or get ran through higher content by an experienced team). Why should PvP require fresh 50 to jump straight in against BiS?

Just as someone else said above, in sports, the winners don't get a huge advantage. Race car drivers don't get faster cars, baseball players don't get special bats that make them hit harder/further, etc. Its all about skill and team work.

Lets separate the people that want an unfair advantage (gear based) with those who want a fair (skill based) fights and create separate war zone queues. LOL. Make everyone happy.