I will repeat the fast fix for this is rating the gear and running only people who meet the rating in the PvP WZ as they pop. IE, I am in full recruit the gear has a numeric ranking of X, therefore I am going against folks with no more than 5 pieces of Battlemaster, after that it bumps up to the next rated gear groups and they are 6 Battlemaster pieces to all Battemaster, do one more with less than half War Hero gear rating and the final one at half War Hero and above and this is for Pug Groups only.

It is doable, WoW pulled it off relatively quickly in the arenas so the code is there. This way there is a progression in PvP, it will not overcome people in groups or people with healers when the other group doesnt have any and it will not overcome skill issues. However, it will seperate the folks who have skill from those who dont and say it is gear. Cause right now, I defy any of you folks saying cry me a river to show me some actual data that says Gear isnt what wins War Zones if the two teams are equal in communication, heals, and skill. To use some of your own words, listen cupcakes you are talkng tough to cover up the fact that you may be hiding behind your gear.

This would stop two issues, the folks who are getting stomped because they just leveled a new toon, it will also make sure that my higher level geared toons fight against competition. I enjoyed one that we lost by 10 points more than the Huttball we took 6-0 and racked up kill after kill there literally wasnt any competition, a healer and I held the middle I melted their entire team one at a time as they tried to get there and got healed so even two or three on one I took easily. My job grab the ball from the middle throw it to center where that player either ran it in or threw to the next team member. It was a assembly line and guess what it wasnt any challenge, it was a free win.

I worry that getting stomped like that may convince half of those other people to quit which with the state of the game all of us should be wanting to retain players as much as possible.

Holy crap, man...cry some more please. You wouldnt take someone in PVE greens to do hardmode EC would you? NOPE. Its the same thing, rateds right now tend to be for the best of the best

Apples and oranges, man. You absolutely CAN NOT compare the PvE grind to the PvP grind.

The most difficult part of gearing up for end game raiding is putting the group together to do it. Battlemaster gear makes you insta-ready for Hard Mode raiding, so Tionese and Columi can be skipped completely. You can be in full Rakata gear in 2 weeks, or almost full Rakata in a single day if you're lucky with gear drops. The grind from BM to WH takes far longer.

there has to be a carrot, if they streamline all the sets it just becomes pvp for the sake of pvp, and it just becomes boring.

No.

Most of the PvP community would continue to play with no gear grind. We PvP to compete, not chase gear sets.

No.

 

Most of the PvP community would continue to play with no gear grind. We PvP to compete, not chase gear sets.

I agree here....In games of the past that had no PvP specific stat and a couple decent outlets for World PvP the zones/Planets were alive with PvP and usually specific areas were HOT zones.... Centering around lowbie areas where ganking occured, or some type of capture point AKA Factional base or area that rewards capture/Holding of the area etc....

Basically the treadmill of 4 WZ's for gear is really playing addiction againsts the community through repetitous tedium in place of an actual PvP system.

I would like to see them enhance Ilum and outlaws Den etc...Place PVP vendors and Terminals there to give people an area to control and fight over for real fun in between WZ Queues... at the very least get everyone off Fleet and into the actual game....

Basically PVP gear is the PvP content in this game....the very few WZ's are a way to get said gear, which in turn is a big part of the imbalances in PvP Gear gap!

Now I wont even start on the whole "Get rid of Expertise" comment because a large portion of the MMO community either refuse to understand the benefit...or are super stuck on getting steamrolled by a PvE raider. So forget that. However I would like to see them Keep the PvP teir system down to 2 sets...Recruit for begginers and then a second set that is moddable with say a 5% across the board bonus over recruit. From then on only release new teir mods,armorings, enhancements etc as upgrades so that the power increase is more gradual and purchases are more frequent.

Now Reward New skins for Valor ranks Say a set availible starting at rank 60 acquiring the full st by rank 70 and so on...but skins only. Everyone has access to the newest availible sets of Mods etc..the day they hit 50...Once they trade in their recruit chest for the moddable version they should have more then enough Comms to fill it with their choice of Armoring, Mod, and Enhancement...AKA no overgrinding for Optomized modding.

So at this point a fully modded WH will have a small gear advantage but a superior Knowledge and Set or two of skins that lower ranked players cant get.

Gear grind has been lessend and we have actual PvP zones to hang out in instead of Fleet. Not the total answer but a start.

Apples and oranges, man. You absolutely CAN NOT compare the PvE grind to the PvP grind.

 

The most difficult part of gearing up for end game raiding is putting the group together to do it. Battlemaster gear makes you insta-ready for Hard Mode raiding, so Tionese and Columi can be skipped completely. You can be in full Rakata gear in 2 weeks, or almost full Rakata in a single day if you're lucky with gear drops. The grind from BM to WH takes far longer.

Except that Rakata should be compared to Battlemaster (58 v 58) while War Hero should be compared to Black Hole or Campaign (61 v 61).

I'm willing to bet there are faaar more players with full War Hero than with full Black Hole/Campaign.

Honestly. The war hero grind isn't bad. It's the lack of fulfillment involved. The concept that we need to have this stuff is very bland. Most of the gear looks a bit silly. You are just another player when it comes to this gear as most of us just strip the mods anyways. There is nothing epic about it / no sense of real accomplishment in acquiring it. As most of us rarely feel some serious benefit from it till we augment the hell out of, as well as farm additional pieces of the armor for it's just to strip the mods.

Agreed I really wish they would just straight rip off the force unleashed gear designs and put them in this game...make few tweaks to avoid being sued but follow the idea...That game had real timeless Star Wars gear designs.

Except that Rakata should be compared to Battlemaster (58 v 58) while War Hero should be compared to Black Hole or Campaign (61 v 61).

 

I'm willing to bet there are faaar more players with full War Hero than with full Black Hole/Campaign.

That may be the case but its not a difficulty in acquiring it...My Jugg is full WH and BH geared and I got the BH gear from just running the BH Weekly and the Daily HM quest.....Was pretty easy. Dropped the mods in the tionese skin or the BM skin if you want those set bonuses and there you go..... The BH skins are so Ugly its no loss having to move the mods to another Skin for set bonuses.

Its all easy to get...Just takes time I really dont think either was faster then the other...But I feel Like I worked harder for the WH set TBH.

Except that Rakata should be compared to Battlemaster (58 v 58) while War Hero should be compared to Black Hole or Campaign (61 v 61).

 

I'm willing to bet there are faaar more players with full War Hero than with full Black Hole/Campaign.

I know this stat is probably WAY out of date by now, back at the Guild Summit, wasn't it something like only ~40% of the population has run an operation, much less cleared it on HM/NiM/doing progression. If that is still the trend, which I think it is, that right there explains why PvP gear is easier to attain. There's no limit to the number of warzones you play (except maybe your patience), while there is a limit to how often you can weekly run an operation. Also, you can queue for a warzone solo and get matches in a fairly timely manner, something that isn't really possible for PvE (I don't have the patience for running pug operations unless there are people I trust organizing it...after running into a Shadow Tank in Sage DPS and Guardian Tank gear, never again).

That's not to say that the PvE gear curve is difficult, though. It just takes more time to accomplish and for those who do, you can literally skip the Tionese, Columi, and even Rakata tiers. If you do run an operation and get lucky drops, you can accidentally be geared in as little as one night.

No, my complaint and concern is that it is getting harder and harder for people to run rated teams, and even when you do run rateds, more than half of the time you are running into undergeared pug teams who are trying to quicken the gear grind (which is why "the best of the best" is a joke). This is not fun for anyone, or at least not for anyone who is out for competition and not a pointless rated number.

I'm with you here. I cringe every time someone advocates farming rated with undergeared toons just to get rated comms faster. personally, I like to play the game, and getting spawn camped isn't playing the game. it's feeding a meat grinder. so I wouldn't bother doing it for that reason alone. but the fact that it feeds valor, comms and rating to opponents who you have no business playing against in the first place (in a rated setting) is a more universal issue. it's like farming valor with friends on Ilum pre- 1.2. invalidates the entire system.

That may be the case but its not a difficulty in acquiring it...My Jugg is full WH and BH geared and I got the BH gear from just running the BH Weekly and the Daily HM quest.....Was pretty easy. Dropped the mods in the tionese skin or the BM skin if you want those set bonuses and there you go..... The BH skins are so Ugly its no loss having to move the mods to another Skin for set bonuses.

 

Its all easy to get...Just takes time I really dont think either was faster then the other...But I feel Like I worked harder for the WH set TBH.

Well yeah, it's not "hard" to get it, it just takes some grinding. Precisely like War Hero.

Personally, I think that the Jugg Black Hole set looks really cool. Infinitely better than the abomination that is the Columi/Rakata. I'm supposed to be a Sith Lord, not a war droid.

Well yeah, it's not "hard" to get it, it just takes some grinding. Precisely like War Hero.

 

Personally, I think that the Jugg Black Hole set looks really cool. Infinitely better than the abomination that is the Columi/Rakata. I'm supposed to be a Sith Lord, not a war droid.

Head piece looks like something from WoW to me....The Boots are decent but they seem like they should go higher in the back...and I really like the gloves. Chest and Pants are boring and plain IMO. Seems like they didnt try to hard on the Chest which in this game should really be the most impressive given shoulders are attached and their entire coloring system is attached to it...But thats just me.

I actually started playing my Pub alt because I like their gear better...Even though most would argue:} Maybe Im just tweaked.

Except that Rakata should be compared to Battlemaster (58 v 58) while War Hero should be compared to Black Hole or Campaign (61 v 61).

 

I'm willing to bet there are faaar more players with full War Hero than with full Black Hole/Campaign.

There's a very simple reason for this: lockouts. You can only raid for gear once per week. Yeah, there's the random daily through the group finder and other methods to get BH comms, but they've effectively limited the amount of PvE gear one can get through the system. In PvP, it's just a matter of how much time you can commit to it.

Ok - I only played two level 50 WZs on him so far. I will post more as they happen. The only reason I didn't also post the first warzone was because the screenshot didn't take (does anyone else have this problem or does it just plague me and some of my guildmates?).

Just posting these because I said I would, and I didn't want to be called a liar. Here's my second level 50 voidstar on this character. Took two screens because I realized it would help if I opened my character page to my stats:

http://i49.tinypic.com/v6ko4n.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/or8nlj.jpg

I hit /played so that you could see that it's about four hours of playtime (which includes a lot of standing around on Fleet while crafting / surfing the Internet) after I hit 50, to give a comparison for people complaining about gearing issues.

Just posting these because I said I would, and I didn't want to be called a liar. Here's my second level 50 voidstar on this character. Took two screens because I realized it would help if I opened my character page to my stats:

 

http://i49.tinypic.com/v6ko4n.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/or8nlj.jpg

 

I hit /played so that you could see that it's about four hours of playtime (which includes a lot of standing around on Fleet while crafting / surfing the Internet) after I hit 50, to give a comparison for people complaining about gearing issues.

Gratz on being a skilled Commando...Your doing well for your gear no doubt. Doesnt disprove anything about gear gap issues for Startup PvP'ers...Just Proves your a beast on your Commando, all due credit. Average numbers for a WH Merc/Commando are around 350k with 70k heals per match, most I have ever seen is 600k dmg. Your already running ahead of the pack.

That said you put the right guy behind the keyboard in level 50 greens and He will pull high numbers in a WZ... This doesnt prove anythiing except the guy is a beast gamer....Gear is itemized with the "average" player in mind (for this game anyway)...Not an above average in skill payer.

Put your run of the mill "casual" player in Recruit gear (Especially on a Commando) Group up and watch them in WZ's and experience what true Horror looks like.

Apples and oranges, man. You absolutely CAN NOT compare the PvE grind to the PvP grind.

 

The most difficult part of gearing up for end game raiding is putting the group together to do it. Battlemaster gear makes you insta-ready for Hard Mode raiding, so Tionese and Columi can be skipped completely. You can be in full Rakata gear in 2 weeks, or almost full Rakata in a single day if you're lucky with gear drops. The grind from BM to WH takes far longer.

 

 

 

No.

 

Most of the PvP community would continue to play with no gear grind. We PvP to compete, not chase gear sets.

Yup, personally Id prefer no gear grind at all in PVP and have been saying that since the start.

PVP should be about ABILITY, STRATAGY, TACTICS, and yes EGO

NOT gear progression

But while there is some good players in War hero who wouldnt be overly effected by removal of gear progression in PVP.

There is a whole whack of sub par players as well that NEED the gear advantage to be better.

Usually find these types farming unranked QZs while in a full pre made.

To them its only about them winning at any cost. They not looking for competition on a balanced scale no matter what they claim.

PS: one of my characters in almost full WH (but I stopped PVPing with him mostly. My 2 main characters each have started the switch to WH over augmented battlemaster so Im not speaking from a case of a have not, im closing in on the have all portion and have every intention of retiring those 2 characters from unranked WZs when they obtain full WH gear and only play them in the ranked WZs.

Course im not looking for the cheap, easy, meaningless win either.

Long as there are players who beleive in winning at any and all costs.

Your going to have players who defend the unbalanced gear progression system of WOW/Rift/TOR

The real PVPers will be the ones looking for balanced and competative PVP where ones ability is the deciding factor, not ones gear.

Just posting these because I said I would, and I didn't want to be called a liar. Here's my second level 50 voidstar on this character. Took two screens because I realized it would help if I opened my character page to my stats:

 

http://i49.tinypic.com/v6ko4n.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/or8nlj.jpg

 

I hit /played so that you could see that it's about four hours of playtime (which includes a lot of standing around on Fleet while crafting / surfing the Internet) after I hit 50, to give a comparison for people complaining about gearing issues.

Well its a disingenuous argument, we have no idea if you were fighting against even more under geared people than you...I doubt skill would get you to the top if you were against/teamed with full WH geared.

Holy crap, man...cry some more please. You wouldnt take someone in PVE greens to do hardmode EC would you? NOPE. Its the same thing, rateds right now tend to be for the best of the best. Not the noobs. If you want to be on even par with someone who has spent a huge amount of time dedicated to playing as soon as you turn the computer on...then this isn't your game. Maybe you should try Call of Duty...or better yet the sims sounds more like your kind of game. Damn right my guardian will roflstomp your *** in 5 seconds if you just dinged 50. Ive been playing him since the game came out. I don't complain when i switch to my combat medic or my shadow in recruit/bm gear that i cant just face roll everyone, I havent put the time in on them to earn that. Go vote for Obama maybe he'll tell you "they didn't build their toons" and give you a free set of WH.

 

 

 

That said I do think they need an arena system for small groups of 2-4, would make it much easier to get people into competetive pvp and much easier to group the bads with the bads and the pros with the pros so we don't have to listen to so much QQ.

Dude I LMAO so hard at the Obama reference. But it's spot on.

You are absolutely right. Gear progression is part of this MMO. I know that I cant down HM EC with tionese gear. I also know that it is going to be more difficult to win games for my team in all recruit gear. But lets be honest, and this has been said time and time again on these forums. The BM grind does not take that long, once its augmented, you are competitive. I know I was with my PT and Sorc. Add in legacy gear and with mailing mods, etc - you can have it sooner on any alts you would make.

Holy crap, man...cry some more please. You wouldnt take someone in PVE greens to do hardmode EC would you? NOPE. Its the same thing, rateds right now tend to be for the best of the best. Not the noobs. If you want to be on even par with someone who has spent a huge amount of time dedicated to playing as soon as you turn the computer on...then this isn't your game. Maybe you should try Call of Duty...or better yet the sims sounds more like your kind of game. Damn right my guardian will roflstomp your *** in 5 seconds if you just dinged 50. Ive been playing him since the game came out. I don't complain when i switch to my combat medic or my shadow in recruit/bm gear that i cant just face roll everyone, I havent put the time in on them to earn that. Go vote for Obama maybe he'll tell you "they didn't build their toons" and give you a free set of WH.

 

 

That said I do think they need an arena system for small groups of 2-4, would make it much easier to get people into competetive pvp and much easier to group the bads with the bads and the pros with the pros so we don't have to listen to so much QQ.

All I get from this is "Whaaah my little d"

I agree here....In games of the past that had no PvP specific stat and a couple decent outlets for World PvP the zones/Planets were alive with PvP and usually specific areas were HOT zones.... Centering around lowbie areas where ganking occured, or some type of capture point AKA Factional base or area that rewards capture/Holding of the area etc....

 

Basically the treadmill of 4 WZ's for gear is really playing addiction againsts the community through repetitous tedium in place of an actual PvP system.

 

I would like to see them enhance Ilum and outlaws Den etc...Place PVP vendors and Terminals there to give people an area to control and fight over for real fun in between WZ Queues... at the very least get everyone off Fleet and into the actual game....

 

Basically PVP gear is the PvP content in this game....the very few WZ's are a way to get said gear, which in turn is a big part of the imbalances in PvP Gear gap!

 

Now I wont even start on the whole "Get rid of Expertise" comment because a large portion of the MMO community either refuse to understand the benefit...or are super stuck on getting steamrolled by a PvE raider. So forget that. However I would like to see them Keep the PvP teir system down to 2 sets...Recruit for begginers and then a second set that is moddable with say a 5% across the board bonus over recruit. From then on only release new teir mods,armorings, enhancements etc as upgrades so that the power increase is more gradual and purchases are more frequent.

 

Now Reward New skins for Valor ranks Say a set availible starting at rank 60 acquiring the full st by rank 70 and so on...but skins only. Everyone has access to the newest availible sets of Mods etc..the day they hit 50...Once they trade in their recruit chest for the moddable version they should have more then enough Comms to fill it with their choice of Armoring, Mod, and Enhancement...AKA no overgrinding for Optomized modding.

 

So at this point a fully modded WH will have a small gear advantage but a superior Knowledge and Set or two of skins that lower ranked players cant get.

 

Gear grind has been lessend and we have actual PvP zones to hang out in instead of Fleet. Not the total answer but a start.

Amen, finally someone who has looked at it and come up with something workable. I wanted to get there through code, his way is better because from what I have seen Bioware and code are not speaking the same language with most of the patches. This would basically put it to a skill point and then we can work on trying to get some of the OP spec changes to make it more skill based rather than gear or spec based.

Once again it isnt going to address the problem of healers on one side of a pug and no healers on the other. But the game is already addressing that in some ways, look at who gets all of the medals votes, I guarantee I look for heals totals to see if a healer did their job well then who was out there doing other stuff. So as healers are rewarded it will address that. Wonder what a healer versus healer with no dps match would look like (scary, high kills 1). The other point is that a group in a pug WZ owns the place for the most part, that can be addressed by making ranked really ranked. You get your ranking and you for the most part play against teams that are ranked the same. Which means that new teams who formed from great PvP player groups will grind through fast and push into where they have ocmpetition. Again though that depends on Bioware doing some decent coding to keep the interest up.

Basically PVP gear is the PvP content in this game....the very few WZ's are a way to get said gear, which in turn is a big part of the imbalances in PvP Gear gap!

 

Now I wont even start on the whole "Get rid of Expertise" comment because a large portion of the MMO community either refuse to understand the benefit...or are super stuck on getting steamrolled by a PvE raider. So forget that. However I would like to see them Keep the PvP teir system down to 2 sets...Recruit for begginers and then a second set that is moddable with say a 5% across the board bonus over recruit. From then on only release new teir mods,armorings, enhancements etc as upgrades so that the power increase is more gradual and purchases are more frequent.

I like the idea of keeping it to two sets. I can tell you the difference between my usefulness in recruit vs. 1/2 WH is insane. I can finally guard a node and even defend it vs. a single attacker (I'm calling for back up any way.) My off-heals buy people several GCD's rather then just adding DMG to the enemies score (Ally at 2k, I heal 2k, enemy hits 5k! ... Sad Panda.)

I will start with the get rid of Expertise comment though! Get rid of Expertise, and create PvP Stats. PvP armor will have things like "PvP Willpower" "PvP Aim" and "PvP Shield Absorb" and be only effective in PvP. No need for the lame *** god stat, and raiders won't stomp people. Like wise, pvp'ers won't get the added benefit of BM gear being good enough for HM content (including HM EV...)