Again, giving pvpers the option to gear via wz coms to get bis, has nothing to do with pve. PvE players can go about doing their progression by doing their operations and gear that way, which is the way pve players want to gear. If a PvE player decides to do some pvp to advance his/her progression the way not intended for them, that is the players decision and choice to make. Same thing goes for pvpers, if they want to do some hm ops to gear out, they have that choice too. Why would you want to put restraints on how people choose to gear between pve and pvp? Isnt that the reason you guys are complaining in the first place.

You completely miss the point he is trying to make.

“BioWare don’t want to give players an easy out when it comes to getting pve gear through playing pvp”

People will mostly always take the fastest and easiest route to gearing. It’s human nature and BioWare know this.

Expecting the vast majority to abide by the rules to gear in specific content as BioWare set them up for grind is nieve.

You don’t seem to really understand the situation regarding gearing. Nothing any of us say will be able to make you understand if you don’t try and look at all the angles and put yourself in other players shoes and also understand why BioWare don’t want to allow people to grind pve gear faster in pvp (if they had the opportunity).

You completely miss the point he is trying to make.

 

“BioWare don’t want to give players an easy out when it comes to getting pve gear through playing pvp”

 

People will mostly always take the fastest and easiest route to gearing. It’s human nature and BioWare know this.

Expecting the vast majority to abide by the rules to gear in specific content as BioWare set them up for grind is nieve.

 

You don’t seem to really understand the situation regarding gearing. Nothing any of us say will be able to make you understand if you don’t try and look at all the angles and put yourself in other players shoes and also understand why BioWare don’t want to allow people to grind pve gear faster in pvp (if they had the opportunity).

you really believe that I did not consider the possibility that some, and as you say most pve players will do pvp if it gears them up faster. I myself would always try and get my bis gear as fast as possible for my main no matter what type of content. If those pvers who hate pvp, but choose to do it to gear up faster, then that is their choice if they want to suffer and gear faster or gear slower but enjoy doing it. That is a questions that everyone will have to make for themselves and both answers are correct. You guys have been complaining that you are FORCED to do pve to gear. So why would you be so opposed to the idea if they gave you YOUR CHOICE of which way you want to gear.

you really believe that I did not consider the possibility that some, and as you say most pve players will do pvp if it gears them up faster. I myself would always try and get my bis gear as fast as possible for my main no matter what type of content. If those pvers who hate pvp, but choose to do it to gear up faster, then that is their choice if they want to suffer and gear faster or gear slower but enjoy doing it. That is a questions that everyone will have to make for themselves and both answers are correct. You guys have been complaining that you are FORCED to do pve to gear. So why would you be so opposed to the idea if they gave you YOUR CHOICE of which way you want to gear.

You are still blindly missing the point.

“BioWare” don’t want pve Raiders to have an option to gear faster. That is why every other player under this system is forced to grind slowly and not fast like we use to for pvp.

Their idea of the grind in 5.10 was purely to give the raiders something to aim for. Which is what most MMO raid games are about, “gear grind” targets.

While ever you have a slow grind for some and a faster path for others, there will be a discrepancy in pvp and it’s not fun. “BioWare” themselves have admitted as much in the past that a slow grind is detrimental to pvp enjoyment. (if you read http://www.swtor.com/blog/pvp-economy-and-ranked-rewards-restructure-game-update-3.3)

I really don’t know if you can’t grasped why this is an issue or if you are trolling.

I much rather have 1 gear set that does both kinds of activities then have to grind out 2 different sets of gear for both types. Fix the gap that it takes to get a full set of gear compared to what it was in the past and you will rather have 1 set of gear too, if you disagree with that then your simply arguing for the sake of arguing and bring nothing to any kind of discussion. Expertise has nothing to do with the time it takes to gear, therefore expertise is useless and they should not waste their time brining it back.

Don't worry, if BW brings back Expertise all of those who asked for it will complain when PvE players go into WZ's with PvE gear. Just like they did in the past. Not everyone will want to waste time or cargo hold/inventory space on 2 sets of gear,

ranked had an expertise lock on it.

good luck with regs tho.

You are still blindly missing the point.

 

“BioWare” don’t want pve Raiders to have an option to gear faster. That is why every other player under this system is forced to grind slowly and not fast like we use to for pvp.

 

Their idea of the grind in 5.10 was purely to give the raiders something to aim for. Which is what most MMO raid games are about, “gear grind” targets.

 

While ever you have a slow grind for some and a faster path for others, there will be a discrepancy in pvp and it’s not fun. “BioWare” themselves have admitted as much in the past that a slow grind is detrimental to pvp enjoyment. (if you read http://www.swtor.com/blog/pvp-economy-and-ranked-rewards-restructure-game-update-3.3)

 

I really don’t know if you can’t grasped why this is an issue or if you are trolling.

I am trying to provide a solution to the gear grind that does not involve bringing back the useless stat of expertise that some of you have been advocating for. I want the players to have the choice to which way they want to get their gear. How long it will take is not up to us, bioware will make that call. This thread is about showing that bringing back expertise as a solution to pvp gear, is a bad and useless idea which I have shown in my previous posts. I offer a solution which I ask the devs to give the players the choice to how they want to gear. Whether they read this and have an internal discussion about it, we will never know. All we can do as the players is suggest things and offer our ideas on stuff about the game. Its funny how from my perspective, it seems like you havent read much of anything from the thread and that you seem to be trolling us because of that.

I am trying to provide a solution to the gear grind that does not involve bringing back the useless stat of expertise that some of you have been advocating for. I want the players to have the choice to which way they want to get their gear. How long it will take is not up to us, bioware will make that call. This thread is about showing that bringing back expertise as a solution to pvp gear, is a bad and useless idea which I have shown in my previous posts. I offer a solution which I ask the devs to give the players the choice to how they want to gear. Whether they read this and have an internal discussion about it, we will never know. All we can do as the players is suggest things and offer our ideas on stuff about the game. Its funny how from my perspective, it seems like you havent read much of anything from the thread and that you seem to be trolling us because of that.

The only way you can seperate pvp and pve gear is to add some sort of mechanism that makes them less than ideal to use in their opposing content. That is what expertise did.

Let’s forget about expertise for a second. The part you aren’t understanding is we need to have TWO sets of gear because one set doesn’t work if Bioware want raiders to have a long grind as part of their content.

Pvpers don’t need to grind to get gear to play our content. Our goal in pvp is to get enjoyment from playing dynamic combat against other players in skill vs skill (ideally). When you have some people with gear and others that don’t, it causes people to have less enjoyment and ultimately they stop playing (as is the case with this system and 5.0).

Without some other option, expertise is the only way you can seperate the two sets of gear.

Of course there is a much simpler method to fix this whole mess, which is increasing Bolster above 258.

But BioWare are determined to make sure that gear grind is part of pvp. Some people like it, but the majority of dedicated pvpers who rarely play pve content will say they would prefer they didn’t have to grind and pvp was purely skill based.

The other option is to reverse Bolster that lowers the 258 gear down to 252 or even 248.

BioWare have tried many different systems for gearing since the game launched. Some of us have seen and experienced them all.

While the expertise and Bolster system was never perfect, it’s the best system they’ve ever had for pvp gearing.

You need to understand, that BioWare swtor nearly always **** up everything when they try and reinvent the wheel. So with their limited resources (probably last year of new content) and their intransigent stubbornness towards gear grind, the best/simplest thing they could do would to revert back to the old pvp gearing system as it was during 4.x. That includes expertise and Bolster, warts an all.

Anything else will just be another BioWare disaster waiting to happen.

My point I’m trying to make isn’t about the expertise stat, I honestly don’t care wether it gave more damage or what ever. It’s about us needing two sets of gear and a mechanism to seperate them.

I don’t know how to simplify it anymore for you. So I hope you can see what we are trying to say.

Something I also just thought of. If BW intends to keep materials for Augments like they currently are in 6.0, where Augments cost millions of credits each (or a ton of mats) players will be less likely to want a 2nd set of gear per character.

It’s all about hidden credit sinks. The higher the price, the more they can take out of the game through their 8% GTN tax.

Keith said last year he would like more credit sinks. Having items cost more on the GTN is one way they can do that. Having players with two sets of gear also achieves the same goal.

BioWare are on the grind conveyor belt for content because they don’t have the funds to make continuous content to keep pve people ineterested enough to hang around. BioWare mistakenly think that gear grind keeps pvpers around for the same reason, when in fact it has the opposite affect.

The problem with their whole grind philosophy is it’s messed up logically. If they really want people to grind more and play more, then a two gear system can achieve that much better than making a one gear system that is horrendously grindy for everyone. All that does is piss everyone off (except the 2% MM raid community).

If you need 2 sets, then you will be more likely to play longer than if you just need one. It also achieves Kieths other goal of having more credit sinks if people want to augment both sets. It would be s win-win situation from a BioWare perspective.

The other thing to consider is what content will people be using the two sets of gear for? I know when we had pvp gear, I could easily do story mode ops with it. So I never bothered with two sets of gear because I never did anything harder than SM. I certainly didn’t need anything higher to do normal pve content in.

So really, only the veteran - master mode players would need 2 sets of gear.

People who purely pvp would only need one

People who never pvp would only need one

People who play both story pve and pvp could rely on their pvp gear and not worry about the higher end raider gear grind.

Something I also just thought of. If BW intends to keep materials for Augments like they currently are in 6.0, where Augments cost millions of credits each (or a ton of mats) players will be less likely to want a 2nd set of gear per character.

the higher tier augs have proven to be minimal dmg increase and 0 damage reduction increase.

I myself mistakenly thought "armor rating" ment additional damage reduction. it did not, I fought a sin with 230 and in 248/240 augs, his discharge did 18k, both sets.

as for dps.. well all you get is 66 power per aug.... yeah! I do uh... maybe 3% more dps? after 80m credits?

It’s all about hidden credit sinks. The higher the price, the more they can take out of the game through their 8% GTN tax.

 

Keith said last year he would like more credit sinks. Having items cost more on the GTN is one way they can do that. Having players with two sets of gear also achieves the same goal.

 

BioWare are on the grind conveyor belt for content because they don’t have the funds to make continuous content to keep pve people ineterested enough to hang around. BioWare mistakenly think that gear grind keeps pvpers around for the same reason, when in fact it has the opposite affect.

 

The problem with their whole grind philosophy is it’s messed up logically. If they really want people to grind more and play more, then a two gear system can achieve that much better than making a one gear system that is horrendously grindy for everyone. All that does is piss everyone off (except the 2% MM raid community).

 

If you need 2 sets, then you will be more likely to play longer than if you just need one. It also achieves Kieths other goal of having more credit sinks if people want to augment both sets. It would be s win-win situation from a BioWare perspective.

 

The other thing to consider is what content will people be using the two sets of gear for? I know when we had pvp gear, I could easily do story mode ops with it. So I never bothered with two sets of gear because I never did anything harder than SM. I certainly didn’t need anything higher to do normal pve content in.

 

So really, only the veteran - master mode players would need 2 sets of gear.

People who purely pvp would only need one

People who never pvp would only need one

People who play bother story pve and pvp could rely on their pvp gear and not worry about the higher end raider gear grind.

But it won't create more credit sinks as much. What it'll do is PvE players will use those Augments for other PvE characters, not for a PvP set of gear. So they will be less likely to even make a PvP set for when they enter WZ's because they know they won't Augment it. And if they do make a PvP set, they'll just use inferior Augments. Regardless you'll still hear complaints that PvE players either are using PvE gear or that they're using less then optimal gear if using inferior augments.

But it won't create more credit sinks as much. What it'll do is PvE players will use those Augments for other PvE characters, not for a PvP set of gear. So they will be less likely to even make a PvP set for when they enter WZ's because they know they won't Augment it.

You do realise that 228 Augments Bolster to 236? You just need to put those in instead of 236 ones to save credits or if you can afford to waste credits on 240, well you can probably afford to make 2 sets anyway.

Honestly the stat difference is minimal between 236-240 and the cost means that 80% of players won’t ever buy them for either set of gear.

The only way you can seperate pvp and pve gear is to add some sort of mechanism that makes them less than idea to use in their opposing content. That is what expertise did.

 

Let’s forget about expertise for a second. The part you aren’t understanding is we need to have TWO sets of gear because one set doesn’t work if Bioware want raiders to have a long grind as part of their content.

 

Pvpers don’t need to grind to get gear to play our content. Our goal in pvp is to get enjoyment from playing dynamic combat against other players in skill vs skill (ideally). When you have some people with gear and others that don’t, it causes people to have less enjoyment and ultimately they stop playing (as is the case with this system and 5.0).

 

Without some other option, expertise is the only way you can seperate the two sets of gear.

 

Of course there is a much simpler method to fix this whole mess, which is increasing Bolster above 258.

But BioWare are determined to make sure that gear grind is part of pvp. Some people like it, but the majority of dedicated pvpers who rarely play pve content will say they would prefer they didn’t have to grind and pvp was purely skill based.

 

The other option is to reverse Bolster that lowers the 258 gear down to 252 or even 248.

 

BioWare have tried many different systems for gearing since the game launched. Some of us have seen and experienced them all.

While the expertise and Bolster system was never perfect, it’s the best system they’ve ever had for pvp gearing.

 

You need to understand, that BioWare swtor nearly always **** up everything when they try and reinvent the wheel. So with their limited resources (probably last year of new content) and their intransigent stubbornness towards gear grind, the best/simplest thing they could do would to revert back to the old pvp gearing system as it was during 4.x. That includes expertise and Bolster, warts an all.

Anything else will just be another BioWare disaster waiting to happen.

 

My point I’m trying to make isn’t about the expertise stat, I honestly don’t care wether it gave more damage or what ever. It’s about us needing two sets of gear and a mechanism to seperate them.

 

I don’t know how to simplify it anymore for you. So I hope you can see what we are trying to say.

When I read your posts you consistent seem to think that you know what bioware wants for pve raiders. all it sounds to me like its simply your opinion of what you think bioware wants.

You want two sets of gear with something to separate them. Great. I for one dont like that at all, as I suggested before I would be much happier if everyone had the choice of how they wanted to gear up.

Perhaps this is not the best analogy, but it seems to me like you want to be treated as sheep and be told what you should do and how to do it instead of having your own free will. We absolutely do not need 2 sets of gear with two separate paths, two separate grinds in order to enjoy both aspects of this game.

The idea that every true pvp hopes to have a purely skill vs skill match up is true. The reality however is that this game is never going to be purely skill vs skill (somehow you seem to believe that it is possible). The game is too complex to have that even as a possibility. I've already talked a bit about this before, you might want to re-read that part.

Trixie, you are not a representative of bioware, so please stop trying to speak for them, that is not your place.

Look, I understand that you want to separate both aspects of the game in regards to gear. I remember those days when we did have that. Now with the removal of expertise, we only needed one set of gear to do either piece of content. Between having both options, having one set of gear to me is a no braining a better thing to have. The problem we have atm is that the way to acquire the gear forces players to do content they do not want to do. My solution is simple: give us the free will to choose how we want to gear out our toons to then play what ever content we want.

If you want to remain a sheep, be my guest. If I get my option to have free will, I'm taking it.

I'll give you a bit of free info... the majority of humans are sheep. it is what it is, not everyone can or wants to be innovative, a lot of us, myself included, choose to make the best of what life hands us.

you want choices, make your own game. other wise, accept that public design is based off "the masses" and not the minoritys.

if you give one content an easy system to gear, and you make the other hard.. the majority will not gear the hardway. if it ended with that it would be ok, but pve is built around progression. its a house of cards, you take progression away no one cares and everyone finds a better game. 5.x screwed pvpers... bioware is just mighty glad pvpers were a minority. boy had they called that wrong this game would be 2 servers and 1 instance fleet at prime time by now

(hypothecticaly in this scenario they do what you suggest, make all gear easy, remove progression gearing from pve, and all the pvers leave except expansion day to see the new fps/op)

your suggestion isnt innovative, its destructive to the game design. best case scenario with your idea bioware doesnt bring back expertise, leaves this horrid gear grind and with any luck makes bolster for wz 2 points above BiS. BUT! worst case scenario theyve not only destroyed the pvp community with 5.0 but 6.0 will take all progression gearing and make it preschool easy, effectively destroying the pve community as everyone leaves for something that doesnt coddle them.

@Zurules:

No gear:

Yes we could absolutely make do with 1 set of gear, as long as PVP was auto-bolstered to 258 or 270 or something obscene. We don't really care about gear at all, except for cosmetic reasons (Space Barbie <3 )

PVP Gear:

Unfortunately BW has never agreed to make bolster max or above, and thus the only realistic option is to separate gear for PvP and PvE.

Only 252 / 258 gear:

You argue that the above is wrong, and that BW could make PVP-grinding towards 252 / 258 just as fast and that it is up to the individual players to obtain gear however they chose. But that is simply not how gear-progression works. It would kill the game within 6-12 months as all traditional PVE progression players would abandon end-game PvE to max out their gear and then complain about not having new content or reason to play the game and quit. Faster gear for all is the last thing BW would ever implement, it is a completely unrealistic approach to this problem.

So...

I, and everybody else here, can not make this any more clearer. Without snark or intended belittlement, you should consider that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong here.

 

so why did it exist? because gear with expertise was cheaply earned quickly, allowing pvp to be a very fast gearing mode, because pvp is an action mode not a progression one.

.

OP, I have to disagree with your post. Seterade is right.

Let's take it that we all want SWTOR to work for as many people as possible and for as many as possible to find the game satisfying and fun.

I've been 10 years a pvper in WoW and SWTOR. I'm not brilliant at it, I just love it. I love the challenges of objectives, class mastering, learning to counter different classes, learning "tricks" etc. I love how each match is different. And, during those 10 years I've also learned that a significant majority of fellow pvpers want to pvp, not pvE. If the pvp environment is right we will want to focus on that. IME far more folks are passionate about one or the other, few folks like both equally.

Others have talked about the relative ease or difficulty of getting gear. Seterade is spot on: pvp is an action mode, not a progression mode. Gearing should happen quickly at the beginning of a season or expansion to allow for equalised skill so that the action mode is on an even footing. PvE gearing should happen more slowly as each tier of gear unlocks harder and more challenging content. The most frustrating thing is SWTOR already had a great pvp gearing system and ditched it.

You stand out in pvE by completing the hardest raid and getting the best gear.

You stand out as a pvper by beating other players or teams who are geared equally

If you only have one gearing system, by definition you spoil either pvE or PvP. If it's easier to gear via PvE then PvPers are forced to play content they don't want to play in order to play content they love. This is the case in SWTOR right now. If it's easier to gear in PvP then PvErs will gear up for raids in warzones, doing content they're not interested in. Again Saterade is right - you will pick the easiest gearing solution.

The only way in principle one gearing solution would work would be if gearing in PvP or PvE was equal. But how on earth could you make it so? Should I get the same bracers from 3 warzones as from 3 flashpoints? Or what? Equality of gearing is impossible because it's like saying make a hamburger equivalent to an ice cream.

This is the crux of why pvpers want expertise back. Imagine a casino where I love to play poker and want to play it all day, but you love to play blackjack. I hate blackjack and I don't want to play it. But the casino rigs the system so that blackjack players win chips at a far faster and greater rate than poker players. (yeah, they're a generous bunch!) So, I play poker for a week and you play blackjack. We then sit down to play poker together. You have twice as much money for poker, but you played blackjack to get it! So if I want to compete with you, I have to grit my teeth and play blackjack for a week. And I don't enjoy that week of blackjack one bit.

What would I do? Well I do love poker. So I'd either spend a lot of time playing something I don't enjoy - or more likely, I'd find a casino that rewards poker players for playing poker, and blackjack players for playing blackjack. I'd vote with my feet and leave the casino. Just like so many pvpers left SWTOR.

(Now if PvErs say expertise is a barrier and they want to pvp too, again SWTOR already had the solution. Gearing in PvP (because it is an action mode) ishould be quick and easy. As in the old days, a PvEr could start warzoning and be easily geared in a week and had learned about PvP as well. Expertise is not asking PvErs to grind for weeks and weeks to be competitive. It's asking for a short learning curve.)

And that's why we need expertise back.

PvP in MMO's has two ways to go whatever MMO it is, Star Wars including.

Or you remove gear from PvP completely or you make PvP Gear for it.

I cannot understand if I like to 100% PvP why I do need to go to an an Opps or FP to get gear for WZ or Arenas.

If you do not want to get ganged you can also choose a PvE instance today and no one will gank you.

5.0 and afterwards was a big mistake for SWTOR as the 50% decline in subs and population have shown.

BioWare has a history of taking stuff from PvPers; Illum in 1.3, 8vs8 ranked WZs in 3.3, and then PvP gear in 5.0.

Each mistake was a cost of population dwindle.

When 1.3 came and Illum World PvP was vanished 50% of population left my server RP-PVP EU Lord Calypho.

When 3.3 came and Ranked 8vs8 left we had another 50% dwindle on Tomb of Freedom Nadd.

When 5.0 came again another 50% dwindle.

They have the data more then I do and they can check what a mess they have done in PvP since March 2012.

The biggest mistakes have been 3.3 and 5.0

They should leaven something from PvE in PvP, leave the stuff there even if most players do not use, some really enjoy it.

A sub since 20/12/2011 (game launch) who up till April 2017 only left for a month or two...

Anyways I re-subbed in 12/2018.

PvP in MMO's has two ways to go whatever MMO it is, Star Wars including.

 

Or you remove gear from PvP completely or you make PvP Gear for it.

 

I cannot understand if I like to 100% PvP why I do need to go to an an Opps or FP to get gear for WZ or Arenas.

 

If you do not want to get ganged you can also choose a PvE instance today and no one will gank you.

 

5.0 and afterwards was a big mistake for SWTOR as the 50% decline in subs and population have shown.

 

BioWare has a history of taking stuff from PvPers; Illum in 1.3, 8vs8 ranked WZs in 3.3, and then PvP gear in 5.0.

Each mistake was a cost of population dwindle.

When 1.3 came and Illum World PvP was vanished 50% of population left my server RP-PVP EU Lord Calypho.

When 3.3 came and Ranked 8vs8 left we had another 50% dwindle on Tomb of Freedom Nadd.

When 5.0 came again another 50% dwindle.

They have the data more then I do and they can check what a mess they have done in PvP since March 2012.

The biggest mistakes have been 3.3 and 5.0

 

They should leaven something from PvE in PvP, leave the stuff there even if most players do not use, some really enjoy it.

 

A sub since 20/12/2011 (game launch) who up till April 2017 only left for a month or two...

Anyways I re-subbed in 12/2018.

Not to nitpick but ranked 8's was taken out in 2.4 - http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.4.0/dread-war

Also OP doesn't understand gearing.

Bringing back expertise is just pushing the problem around.

If you only PVP then, yes, it will mean you don't have to grind PVE for PVP gear but if you PVP and PVE then it means you have to grind both. Plus PVE will be back to carrying PVPers because of the "PVP gear is fine for PVE" crew rocking up in ops and FPs. And you will have put a barrier in place to discourage PVEers from trying out PVP. If it takes a couple of weeks for a hard core PVPer to get the gear then it will take a month or two for casual PVPers. Six weeks of being ripped to shreds by players who were better than you BEFORE they got a gear advantage. That'll get the queues a popping.

The actual solution is just to remove gearing; it's a dead mechanic. Bolster is already 90% of the way there. It's BiS-1 but it's a complex and clunky mechanism, making a one size fits all guess on how to bolster a players stats. Easiest fix for SWTOR is to just give away the mods and let players customize their own builds. The challenge then becomes matching your gear to your class, your playstyle and the content. Dying in PVP too much? Swap out damage for endurance. Stalling on a boss with a fast enrage? Get the tanks to ditch endurance for crit. Prefer DoT to burst? Stack alacrity and make those ticks tick AND tock.

The problem with THAT is Ossus. Ossus is EXACTLY the opposite of what needs to happen. And its a success. The place is packed with people running a nostalgic scrapbook of retro quests and a couple of bug riddled slideshow bosses all to get a teeny, tiny gear advantage. FOMO is a powerful thing. From EAs business perspective, the Ossus release was a success; a threadbare rehash of dated content that kept the troops trudging wearily back to another "dead world" (easy on the designers) to fight in a rocky desert (easy on the renderer) to complete a gear grind that noone wanted.

Expect more of the same. EA want your money, not your love.

When I read your posts you consistent seem to think that you know what bioware wants for pve raiders. all it sounds to me like its simply your opinion of what you think bioware wants.

 

You want two sets of gear with something to separate them. Great. I for one dont like that at all, as I suggested before I would be much happier if everyone had the choice of how they wanted to gear up.

 

Perhaps this is not the best analogy, but it seems to me like you want to be treated as sheep and be told what you should do and how to do it instead of having your own free will. We absolutely do not need 2 sets of gear with two separate paths, two separate grinds in order to enjoy both aspects of this game.

 

The idea that every true pvp hopes to have a purely skill vs skill match up is true. The reality however is that this game is never going to be purely skill vs skill (somehow you seem to believe that it is possible). The game is too complex to have that even as a possibility. I've already talked a bit about this before, you might want to re-read that part.

 

 

Trixie, you are not a representative of bioware, so please stop trying to speak for them, that is not your place.

 

 

Look, I understand that you want to separate both aspects of the game in regards to gear. I remember those days when we did have that. Now with the removal of expertise, we only needed one set of gear to do either piece of content. Between having both options, having one set of gear to me is a no braining a better thing to have. The problem we have atm is that the way to acquire the gear forces players to do content they do not want to do. My solution is simple: give us the free will to choose how we want to gear out our toons to then play what ever content we want.

 

 

If you want to remain a sheep, be my guest. If I get my option to have free will, I'm taking it.

I read your posts, as painful as some of them were to read (no sentences structure or paragraphs like this one).

They don’t offer any real solution that would allow players to make a choice on how to gear.

All it does is offer a hard way to gear up in exactly the same gear and an easy way to gear up in exactly the same gear.

That’s not a solution or a choice. People will just choose the easy way.

I’m also not a BioWare spokesmen, I don’t speak for them and I’ve never said I did. Please don’t insinuate anything else as it’s false and misleading.

I have been playing this game since launch and I’ve been playing MMO and grind games since the DOS days (pre Windows).

My analysis of what BioWare is/wants to do is based on my experience and some basic logic. I also read a lot of gaming industry and insider media/articles/interviews. What I described is how grind systems are supposed to work.

So I’m not a sheep, I’m a realist who’s some experience with these things. I’ve probably been playing gear grind games longer than you’ve been alive.

I also provided you with some proof of how BioWare use to view pvp grinding and how/why they changed it in 2015. Now they’ve done a 180” turn around since then and all it’s done is drive pvpers away. BioWare knew back then the situation and what pvpers wanted and then some fool made the decision to ignore what worked for pvpers and moved us to a single gearing system. (Major fail - Ben Irving’s- RNG is exciting)

Ever since we moved to the 5.x single gearing system it has caused problems for everyone, especially pvpers who started to abondon the game 2 months after 5.0 was released.

They have now doubled down on the gear grind again (just after they spent 18 months making 5.0 gearing acceptable) by changing it and making it take longer and be more boring for pvpers to gear.

The only logical reason they changed the gearing and added a MM op was for the raiders. Nothing else makes any sense. If you can’t see that, then maybe you are the sheep for being blinded by the truth of the situation.

If you had participated in the pts testing and the pts forum feedback, you would have realised that BioWare only expected the raiders to need or want the 258 gearing. It wasn’t until pvpers explained to them that if raiders with 258 gear came into pvp they would have an unfair advantage. So BioWare made small changes and concessions to allow pvpers some means to get 258 gear and this is where all the problems started.

5.10 gearing was never originally designed with pvpers in mind, it was for the raiders. By the time they put it on the pts till it was released, they didn’t have enough time to make proper changes from the feed back they got. So they released this piece meal abortion of a system.

Someone at the top messed up and when they tried to fix it they just made it more convoluted instead of fixing it.

There was no logical reason for such a big system change so close to the end of the 5.x era. Especially after they’d spent all that time fixing it. The only viable conclusion is it was only added it for raiders and the rest of us were expected to keep using 248 gear and those that could be bothered would grind 252. Its why they were only going to make Bolster 248 and not 252. The whole 252-258 gearing was a bandaid to make people grind because they didn’t have any meaningful content for people to play till 6.0.

Raiders need/want/love to grind. It’s an intrinsical part of their content model. Pvpers don’t and the majority hate it.

You can’t have two completely different content models work properly on one set of gear. They are at polar opposites and it’s why two sets of gear were originally placed in the game. It’s why we need two sets again.

For all your argument about expertise, it’s not the stat that’s the problem for you, it’s the fact you don’t want to have two sets of gear. So what even pick on expertise for the thread. Why not just say you don’t want two sets of gear and you want a faster way to gear up for pvp? You would have gotten more support for that than attacking expertise, which is only a mechanism to keep pvp and pve gear seperate.

The only other option is to set Bolster higher than the highest gear so there is no grind for pvpers.

Lastly, if you read “all” my posts and posting history, you would realise I’m anything but a sheep. So instead of trying to insult me, do some research so you don’t look foolish.

I'll give you a bit of free info... the majority of humans are sheep. it is what it is, not everyone can or wants to be innovative, a lot of us, myself included, choose to make the best of what life hands us.

 

you want choices, make your own game. other wise, accept that public design is based off "the masses" and not the minoritys.

 

if you give one content an easy system to gear, and you make the other hard.. the majority will not gear the hardway. if it ended with that it would be ok, but pve is built around progression. its a house of cards, you take progression away no one cares and everyone finds a better game. 5.x screwed pvpers... bioware is just mighty glad pvpers were a minority. boy had they called that wrong this game would be 2 servers and 1 instance fleet at prime time by now

 

(hypothecticaly in this scenario they do what you suggest, make all gear easy, remove progression gearing from pve, and all the pvers leave except expansion day to see the new fps/op)

 

your suggestion isnt innovative, its destructive to the game design. best case scenario with your idea bioware doesnt bring back expertise, leaves this horrid gear grind and with any luck makes bolster for wz 2 points above BiS. BUT! worst case scenario theyve not only destroyed the pvp community with 5.0 but 6.0 will take all progression gearing and make it preschool easy, effectively destroying the pve community as everyone leaves for something that doesnt coddle them.

Nothing we say seems to be sinking in. OP refuses to listen to logic or understand the situation is a bit more complex than they think. We are literally trying to teach the unteachable. The earth is flat vs the earth is round argument.

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-do-some-people-believe-the-earth-is-flat

And believe it or not there is still a movement that supports the earth is flat

The only way you can seperate pvp and pve gear is to add some sort of mechanism that makes them less than ideal to use in their opposing content. That is what expertise did.

 

Let’s forget about expertise for a second. The part you aren’t understanding is we need to have TWO sets of gear because one set doesn’t work if Bioware want raiders to have a long grind as part of their content.

 

Pvpers don’t need to grind to get gear to play our content. Our goal in pvp is to get enjoyment from playing dynamic combat against other players in skill vs skill (ideally). When you have some people with gear and others that don’t, it causes people to have less enjoyment and ultimately they stop playing (as is the case with this system and 5.0).

 

Without some other option, expertise is the only way you can seperate the two sets of gear.

 

Of course there is a much simpler method to fix this whole mess, which is increasing Bolster above 258.

But BioWare are determined to make sure that gear grind is part of pvp. Some people like it, but the majority of dedicated pvpers who rarely play pve content will say they would prefer they didn’t have to grind and pvp was purely skill based.

 

The other option is to reverse Bolster that lowers the 258 gear down to 252 or even 248.

 

BioWare have tried many different systems for gearing since the game launched. Some of us have seen and experienced them all.

While the expertise and Bolster system was never perfect, it’s the best system they’ve ever had for pvp gearing.

 

You need to understand, that BioWare swtor nearly always **** up everything when they try and reinvent the wheel. So with their limited resources (probably last year of new content) and their intransigent stubbornness towards gear grind, the best/simplest thing they could do would to revert back to the old pvp gearing system as it was during 4.x. That includes expertise and Bolster, warts an all.

Anything else will just be another BioWare disaster waiting to happen.

 

My point I’m trying to make isn’t about the expertise stat, I honestly don’t care wether it gave more damage or what ever. It’s about us needing two sets of gear and a mechanism to seperate them.

 

I don’t know how to simplify it anymore for you. So I hope you can see what we are trying to say.

I actually wonder if there is another way.

PvP serves two purposes, in MMOs. The first is pretty obvious - if you want to get some action going, in game, but only have a short amount of time, it provides a competitive "quick burn" to everyone and anyone AND it has the added bonus of pitting you against your peers, versus against a pre-ordained and static acting computer AI. The second purpose is to provide competitive PvPers an outlet that is, in a way, equally a grind comparison to PvE content.

I played WoW for 7+ years and my guild was one of the top two on Maelstrom, Horde side, from vanilla up to and beyond Cataclysm. So, I'm aware of the hard core gear grinds, the gating quests, running smaller instances to get gear to equip you to do the new content starter raid to get better gear to kill the next raid for even better gear. The PvE wants to kill mobs and bosses to get stuff. THAT is the release. And, to that end, I'd say that the SWTOR PvE gear grind is somewhat ok - I left in 2013 when the Hutt raid was added so I've been out of the game for a while. PvE gear grinding is all about the time sink and we accept that. No matter the number of people in your group or the difficulty level of the content, not everyone is going to get an item on a clear. Even you get something, it might be something that you already had which, in turn, means that you didn't get anything. As damned frustrating as that is, we accept that as a part of the time sink.

For PvPers, the time sink isn't what we want. We want to be able to hop in a game, get our jollies nuking people into the dirt, and then going on with our lives. You can't equalize getting gear in PvP to that of PvE because it doesn't work, with our mindsets and outlooks. What's more, you shouldn't have a credit sink for PvP because making money in PvP isn't the point and has been historically not a money making venture.

So, as you said, there needs to be TWO sets of gear. But, it needs to go beyond that:

- set bolster to a specific point, either at the highest level of PvE gear or lower THEN normalize it, both up and down; you should be able to hop in a PvP match, no matter your gear, and be on equal footing because PvP is about skill not stuff (to a point)

- alter the set bonuses on PvE sets to affect non-player characters and change the set bonuses on PvP gear to affect only player characters; by doing this, it doesn't matter that you use PvE gear in PvP or vice versa because you'll already be at a slight disadvantage for both

- have Expertise be the 2-piece set bonus and push the current set bonuses to 4-piece and 6-piece but equalize the gear set levels; with Expertise as a bonus, it allows PvE geared players to get it, without breaking their balls to do so, and it pushes PvP players to get more pieces to achieve set bonuses, thus keeping PvP from turning in to a gear burn fest

- return the War Zone commendations, take PvP gear grind off of anything that isn't actually PvP, but make it a system where there is an increased cost per piece bought:

a. 100 commendations = 1 token (as an example, not a suggestion)

b. each piece = 1 token (as an example, not a suggestion)

c. each piece purchased after the first requires an additional token, thus forcing the gear grind on a bell curve

- add multiple sets of PvP gear with each set being necessary to buy the next but with each set gaining a set bonus (ie., set A only gets a 2 piece, set B gets a 2 and 4 piece, and set C gets a 2, 4, and 6 piece); doing this adds more PvP grind and a time sync that PvPers will actually like while also preventing players from getting gear too quickly and then using it in raids (in addition to the above changes)

-----

In the end, there needs to be a balance between gear. Each subset of players should be able to get the gear that they need/want at the fastest pace of actually performing the actions FROM those different subsets. BUT, there needs to be a counter balance where the PvP player can't go dominate a raid because of the speed at which they received their gear, just like a PvE nightmare raider shouldn't dominate the PvP players.

Bioware needs to understand that each subset has a different attention span. PvP is the quick hit while PvE is the slow burn. Normalizing the grind and forcing players into actions that they don't want just pisses people off. And creating a situation in which one side can just easily perform at the highest level in the other, with the counter subset gear, is also a problem that needs to be avoided and is why Expertise was originally introduced.

EDIT: This comes from a 7 year WoW player that had hard mode everything, from Frozen Throne on and was one of the few players that got the 100,000 PvP kill achievement, PRIOR to Cataclysm, and was 2/3rd of the way to the 500,000 PvP kill achievement while also being a Warlord. Bovii the Hunter was an amazing beast, for a time....

I actually wonder if there is another way.

 

PvP serves two purposes, in MMOs. The first is pretty obvious - if you want to get some action going, in game, but only have a short amount of time, it provides a competitive "quick burn" to everyone and anyone AND it has the added bonus of pitting you against your peers, versus against a pre-ordained and static acting computer AI. The second purpose is to provide competitive PvPers an outlet that is, in a way, equally a grind comparison to PvE content.

 

I played WoW for 7+ years and my guild was one of the top two on Maelstrom, Horde side, from vanilla up to and beyond Cataclysm. So, I'm aware of the hard core gear grinds, the gating quests, running smaller instances to get gear to equip you to do the new content starter raid to get better gear to kill the next raid for even better gear. The PvE wants to kill mobs and bosses to get stuff. THAT is the release. And, to that end, I'd say that the SWTOR PvE gear grind is somewhat ok - I left in 2013 when the Hutt raid was added so I've been out of the game for a while. PvE gear grinding is all about the time sink and we accept that. No matter the number of people in your group or the difficulty level of the content, not everyone is going to get an item on a clear. Even you get something, it might be something that you already had which, in turn, means that you didn't get anything. As damned frustrating as that is, we accept that as a part of the time sink.

 

For PvPers, the time sink isn't what we want. We want to be able to hop in a game, get our jollies nuking people into the dirt, and then going on with our lives. You can't equalize getting gear in PvP to that of PvE because it doesn't work, with our mindsets and outlooks. What's more, you shouldn't have a credit sink for PvP because making money in PvP isn't the point and has been historically not a money making venture.

 

So, as you said, there needs to be TWO sets of gear. But, it needs to go beyond that:

 

- set bolster to a specific point, either at the highest level of PvE gear or lower THEN normalize it, both up and down; you should be able to hop in a PvP match, no matter your gear, and be on equal footing because PvP is about skill not stuff (to a point)

 

- alter the set bonuses on PvE sets to affect non-player characters and change the set bonuses on PvP gear to affect only player characters; by doing this, it doesn't matter that you use PvE gear in PvP or vice versa because you'll already be at a slight disadvantage for both

 

- have Expertise be the 2-piece set bonus and push the current set bonuses to 4-piece and 6-piece but equalize the gear set levels; with Expertise as a bonus, it allows PvE geared players to get it, without breaking their balls to do so, and it pushes PvP players to get more pieces to achieve set bonuses, thus keeping PvP from turning in to a gear burn fest

 

- return the War Zone commendations, take PvP gear grind off of anything that isn't actually PvP, but make it a system where there is an increased cost per piece bought:

 

a. 100 commendations = 1 token (as an example, not a suggestion)

b. each piece = 1 token (as an example, not a suggestion)

c. each piece purchased after the first requires an additional token, thus forcing the gear grind on a bell curve

 

- add multiple sets of PvP gear with each set being necessary to buy the next but with each set gaining a set bonus (ie., set A only gets a 2 piece, set B gets a 2 and 4 piece, and set C gets a 2, 4, and 6 piece); doing this adds more PvP grind and a time sync that PvPers will actually like while also preventing players from getting gear too quickly and then using it in raids (in addition to the above changes)

-----

 

In the end, there needs to be a balance between gear. Each subset of players should be able to get the gear that they need/want at the fastest pace of actually performing the actions FROM those different subsets. BUT, there needs to be a counter balance where the PvP player can't go dominate a raid because of the speed at which they received their gear, just like a PvE nightmare raider shouldn't dominate the PvP players.

 

Bioware needs to understand that each subset has a different attention span. PvP is the quick hit while PvE is the slow burn. Normalizing the grind and forcing players into actions that they don't want just pisses people off. And creating a situation in which one side can just easily perform at the highest level in the other, with the counter subset gear, is also a problem that needs to be avoided and is why Expertise was originally introduced.

 

 

 

EDIT: This comes from a 7 year WoW player that had hard mode everything, from Frozen Throne on and was one of the few players that got the 100,000 PvP kill achievement, PRIOR to Cataclysm, and was 2/3rd of the way to the 500,000 PvP kill achievement while also being a Warlord. Bovii the Hunter was an amazing beast, for a time....

I agree most of that, but you made some of it a little convoluted, especially as this is BioWare (no resources) vs Blizzard (with more resources than god).

You have to make systems as simple as possible for the guys in development or it becomes a bug fast and broken mess.

It’s why people are suggesting the easiest solution is to just go back to the 4.0 system of gearing for pvp.

Your ideas are good and use a lot of the old systems too, you just need to lower your expectations on what BioWare is capable of when they have no resources and have a history of messing up bad.