A good pvper doesn't need gear to beat an equally geared casual player.

I've been thinking about this point since last night, especialy now I've had a chnace to play a few more WZ. Now, I'm not the best PvPr and never claimed to be. I am a wiz at tactics and knowing how to win WZ, but I click as much as I keybind and sometimes get flustered.

But while I'm not 'leet' - I am quite good and fancy my chances 1 v 1 against most people, cept for a few names on my server when I jusy know I'm getting my head handed to me.

The argument for bolster appears to be that it's leveled the playing field. But this is patently not the case. There are still massive discrepancies being brought in depending on what gear you wear - only now its PVE gear. Today a shadow in my team was at 30,000 hp in a mix of rakata and columi. In my 3 pieces of BH armour I was at 24.5k

Aside from that - there is no skill anymore. The TTK has been lowered too much by people doing 7-9k crits.

I played both EHW v EWH and now this - and I can say that there was far more skill in geared PvP than what we have now. Battles were fast, yes, but you had to know your char pretty well and be able to deploy your skills appropriately.

Now I'm getting the same win/loss ratio, but the skill has gone. It's just a button-mashing excercise coupled with a race to stun the other so you can burn them down.

I think what I'm trying to say is that having gear doesn't make bad players good - bolster is doing that.

I've been thinking about this point since last night, especialy now I've had a chnace to play a few more WZ. Now, I'm not the best PvPr and never claimed to be. I am a wiz at tactics and knowing how to win WZ, but I click as much as I keybind and sometimes get flustered.

 

But while I'm not 'leet' - I am quite good and fancy my chances 1 v 1 against most people, cept for a few names on my server when I jusy know I'm getting my head handed to me.

 

The argument for bolster appears to be that it's leveled the playing field. But this is patently not the case. There are still massive discrepancies being brought in depending on what gear you wear - only now its PVE gear. Today a shadow in my team was at 30,000 hp in a mix of rakata and columi. In my 3 pieces of BH armour I was at 24.5k

 

Aside from that - there is no skill anymore. The TTK has been lowered too much by people doing 7-9k crits.

 

I played both EHW v EWH and now this - and I can say that there was far more skill in geared PvP than what we have now. Battles were fast, yes, but you had to know your char pretty well and be able to deploy your skills appropriately.

 

Now I'm getting the same win/loss ratio, but the skill has gone. It's just a button-mashing excercise coupled with a race to stun the other so you can burn them down.

 

I think what I'm trying to say is that having gear doesn't make bad players good - bolster is doing that.

If you are wearing any gear with expertise on it take it off. The only people I was seeing dropping like flies were the ones wearing PvP gear. They phased out PvP gear sub 55, bolster doesn't work well on gear with expertise. Straight PvE gear no relics is better than being naked, more main stat less endurance but the difference is really small.

I've been thinking about this point since last night, especialy now I've had a chnace to play a few more WZ. Now, I'm not the best PvPr and never claimed to be. I am a wiz at tactics and knowing how to win WZ, but I click as much as I keybind and sometimes get flustered.

 

But while I'm not 'leet' - I am quite good and fancy my chances 1 v 1 against most people, cept for a few names on my server when I jusy know I'm getting my head handed to me.

 

The argument for bolster appears to be that it's leveled the playing field. But this is patently not the case. There are still massive discrepancies being brought in depending on what gear you wear - only now its PVE gear. Today a shadow in my team was at 30,000 hp in a mix of rakata and columi. In my 3 pieces of BH armour I was at 24.5k

 

Aside from that - there is no skill anymore. The TTK has been lowered too much by people doing 7-9k crits.

 

I played both EHW v EWH and now this - and I can say that there was far more skill in geared PvP than what we have now. Battles were fast, yes, but you had to know your char pretty well and be able to deploy your skills appropriately.

 

Now I'm getting the same win/loss ratio, but the skill has gone. It's just a button-mashing excercise coupled with a race to stun the other so you can burn them down.

 

I think what I'm trying to say is that having gear doesn't make bad players good - bolster is doing that.

Essentially this.

The good players are still winning and the bad players are still losing; now they are just getting more kills than before.

I would personally like slightly higher TTK and some actual differentiation between level and gear.

Hey everyone,

 

Just wanted to let you know that I am grabbing questions/feedback from this thread and passing it on to the PvP and combat teams. I should have answers to some of your questions, etc. a bit later on today. Thanks!

 

-eric

How about in the future don't implement something into the game that you know for a fine fact is broke, this issue was on PTS and it was bug reported by a fair few people, did you fix it? no. You simply went ahead and ruined the game for us, either fix it asap or revert it back until you know you can fix it, thank you.

To the people that think skill > gear. I don't think so. Before 2.0 the people that did the mass amount of killing were the people with gear. I tell you what, any skilled player get the recruit gear level item. I'll get the partisan or conqueror gear, I will destroy you every time. It doesn't matter what you do. This game is gear dependent, if you don't have the gear you're not going to perform better than people with better gear, unless they are just dreadful.

Always and forever

Gear > Skill. Just my opinion on how I see things. Never seen a skilled player in recruit gear before.

To the people that think skill > gear. I don't think so.

 

Gear > Skill. Just my opinion on how I see things. Never seen a skilled player in recruit gear before.

So you think gear is what makes a player good huh.

Does that gear stop someone from capping a door?

Does gear lock down a healer?

Does gear ninja capp a node?

Does gear know when to taunt damage correctly?

Does gear know when to pass a huttball?

You really don't want me to continue.

Only thing gear does is put statistics on someone back, other than that its 100% to the player.

A player changes a outcome of a game, not the gear.

Its the sole reason why Bioware made Bolster the way it is, a gear gap don't make sense in the 21st century of mmo gaming.

If you want a gear epeen Warcraft is that way -------->.

/fin

People just do not understand; PVP is no longer an arena for players who care about their characters and spend time and resources to gear them up, match their Min/Max priorities to their builds, and practice their rotation priorities to maximize their damage/healing, et al.

 

It is now a realm in which any casual can roll into a War Zone and "pwn" regardless of Gear and Build or level.

 

My level 39 Assassin, with no relics or implants, should not be dropping level 54 Assassins in 1v1s, skill or no.

 

But then again, when you balance your game for the lowest common denominator of effort and skill this is what happens...

Actually, the highest skilled pvp MMOs of old, didn't rely on gear, it was skill.. Meridian59 everyone basically had the same gear, with at best slight variations. PVP was insane, intense, and amazing. They didn't have levels, rather "HP", you started at 10hp, and went up to 100hp. But a 50hp guy with touch of flame could drop a 100hp dude in battle if he had skill. The 50hp guy had the same gear in general, it was all about skill and class speccing.

MANY (if not most) of the best old school MMOs functioned in this way.. DAOC (early on) for example, virtually everyone was in the same sets of armor/weapons by max level. So it really came down to skill, and DAOC early on had what most feel was the best PVP ever. Then the 'gear' infatuation game along, and literally ruined it. The gear infatuation needs to die a quick and painful death, it's usefulness has been outlived by a huge margin. The number of games ruined by excessive gear discrepancies is quite long.

Warhammer was destroyed by Gear-Flation. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to catch up, and anyone coming into the game has no hope in ever having a fair fight. The end result is, people quit, the game dies. Same with Rift, nobody in their right mind would grind out to the higher ranked gear because it is too painful to experience the lower ranked face stop. As a result Rift has failed, the game is dying, and they've removed all focus from PVP and closed down the PVP servers, and removed daily quests, and basically shelved PVP.. It's too broken, and as a result they lost their PVP players. Gear-Grinding doesn't work in PVP, this has been well established. The primary reason is it creates imbalances that can't be overcome in a competitive game.

F2P model has done wonders to bring back fairness in all games that have the model. Guildwars 2 did wonders for showing you don't need insane gear-flation, or crazy gear progressionto keep people pvping, and playing. Star Trek Online had PVP issues because some folks had Jem'Hadar ships and destroyed people. The fix? Give everyone an equivalent ship to Jem'hadar for christmas, and end the gear gap! Right now you can enter STO, and within a week or two 'fully compete' in hardcore PVP against anyone.. That's how it should be.

SWTOR is moving in the right direction, and Hickman is a genius with this latest patch. My guess a lot of hardcore kiddies are butt-hurt now that they don't have legions of recruit geared softies to take down.. My advice is - live with it or move on, it's not going anywhere.. If you can't compete on a 100% even playing field, find a few game.

Actually, the highest skilled pvp MMOs of old, didn't rely on gear, it was skill.. Meridian59 everyone basically had the same gear, with at best slight variations. PVP was insane, intense, and amazing. They didn't have levels, rather "HP", you started at 10hp, and went up to 100hp. But a 50hp guy with touch of flame could drop a 100hp dude in battle if he had skill. The 50hp guy had the same gear in general, it was all about skill and class speccing.

 

MANY (if not most) of the best old school MMOs functioned in this way.. DAOC (early on) for example, virtually everyone was in the same sets of armor/weapons by max level. So it really came down to skill, and DAOC early on had what most feel was the best PVP ever. Then the 'gear' infatuation game along, and literally ruined it. The gear infatuation needs to die a quick and painful death, it's usefulness has been outlived by a huge margin. The number of games ruined by excessive gear discrepancies is quite long.

 

Warhammer was destroyed by Gear-Flation. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to catch up, and anyone coming into the game has no hope in ever having a fair fight. The end result is, people quit, the game dies. Same with Rift, nobody in their right mind would grind out to the higher ranked gear because it is too painful to experience the lower ranked face stop. As a result Rift has failed, the game is dying, and they've removed all focus from PVP and closed down the PVP servers, and removed daily quests, and basically shelved PVP.. It's too broken, and as a result they lost their PVP players. Gear-Grinding doesn't work in PVP, this has been well established. The primary reason is it creates imbalances that can't be overcome in a competitive game.

 

F2P model has done wonders to bring back fairness in all games that have the model. Guildwars 2 did wonders for showing you don't need insane gear-flation, or crazy gear progressionto keep people pvping, and playing. Star Trek Online had PVP issues because some folks had Jem'Hadar ships and destroyed people. The fix? Give everyone an equivalent ship to Jem'hadar for christmas, and end the gear gap! Right now you can enter STO, and within a week or two 'fully compete' in hardcore PVP against anyone.. That's how it should be.

 

SWTOR is moving in the right direction, and Hickman is a genius with this latest patch. My guess a lot of hardcore kiddies are butt-hurt now that they don't have legions of recruit geared softies to take down.. My advice is - live with it or move on, it's not going anywhere.. If you can't compete on a 100% even playing field, find a few game.

This

Can this post have its own sticky?

go away. eesh.

if they wanted equality, they could've gone the Guild Wars 2 route, and everyone would be happy (max level, same gear) without any justification for complaints. but no, they're messing around with half-assed "bolster" measures and retarded bugs that should never have made their way to live game play. I don't PTS because I don't want to be a *&(ing beta-tester. so much for that. I'm beta testing anyway.

This

 

Can this post have its own sticky?

I 2nd that post. I agree about early DAoC, Warhammer, etc. Well said.

My guess a lot of hardcore kiddies are butt-hurt now that they don't have legions of recruit geared softies to take down.. My advice is - live with it or move on, it's not going anywhere.. If you can't compete on a 100% even playing field, find a few game.

This bit here is pure rubbish. Sounds like you haven't even played it yet and don't know what you're talking about, but want to talk about it anyway.

This bit here is pure rubbish. Sounds like you haven't even played it yet so don't know what you're talking about, but want to talk about it anyway.

There is nothing stopping anyone from going into PvP naked. Since naked is the new BiS, everyone is now 100% equal. If you're getting facerolled or roflstomped by anyone, then it's either because you refuse to take off your gear and just want to whine about it, or because you suck, plain and simple.

You got away with pretending you didn't suck for a while there, and claiming that grinding gear = skill. Now you have (literally) nothing to hide behind, because when everyone is reduced to the exact same stats, all you can do is cry about how you can't win cause they took your crutch away.

This bit here is pure rubbish. Sounds like you haven't even played it yet so don't know what you're talking about, but want to talk about it anyway.

Actually its pretty spot on. I pvped a ton last night. Once you figure out not to wear any expertise gear in low level PvP its pretty balanced. I've never been in so many back and forth, come down to the last minute matches. It was challenging, fun, and fulfilling. Not the one sided who has the most min/max players ROFL stomp matches pre 2.0 PvP. Sure they need to change some of the bolster numbers, but there headed in the right direction. If you need a game where you have a huge advantage over what you are playing, go to eBay buy an SNES, a game genie, and some games.

Let me start of by saying. I have been following this and other threads regarding PVP and its state very carefully.. However I took the time to grind for my PVP gear, I did not start PVP till 50 so when I started.. I was getting face rolled constantly. PVP to me was 5 seconds at best before a trip to the med bay.

I got around this by guarding nods and learning, NOT running in a mashing buttons or clicks for a few kills… grinding… and it was fun. Guarding forced me to go one to one with all classes and it taught me what I could and could not do, when to break the snare and when to eat it… It give me a greater insight and feel for my characters… and I KNOW what my character can do.

My Skills are key binded, and I mouse run 80% of the time. It took me 3 weeks! start to finish to grind for War Hero Gear. Took a further 4 weeks to running dailies to get the cash to mod the gear the way I wanted it, (fully Augmented stacked Endurance / Willpower), So I might fit into the Hard-core Kiddies category that people want to flog around.

The state of PVP from my point of view is this. BioWare no longer want to cater for the People who have been here from the start, and like me! are subscribers. They want a pew pew fest for the free to play, casual market. This is nothing short of a simple marketing ploy to extort more money from the cartel market! And my hats of to you BioWare that is just what you got. You have in one short move, killed the work and effort that me and many subscribers have put into SWTOR. To me, it feels like BioWare, just slapped me with a wet fish and did not have the decency to say sorry or kiss it better.

My main Assassin Tank running around naked with only a main hand and offhand equipped, sits at 28890k HP, This might sound a lot, but when you have Smash Babies STILL smashing for 6k hp and Snipers, Criting for 7k hp… you do the math….

So! Revisiting my first statement.

I did not PVP until my main was Level 50… and what we have now is worse than that experience. I for one will not be re subscribing. Reap what you sow

This might sound a lot, but when you have Smash Babies STILL smashing for 6k hp and Snipers, Criting for 7k hp… you do the math….

I call BS! My 38 sniper critted someone for 10k+ last night

There is nothing stopping anyone from going into PvP naked. Since naked is the new BiS, everyone is now 100% equal. If you're getting facerolled or roflstomped by anyone, then it's either because you refuse to take off your gear and just want to whine about it, or because you suck, plain and simple.

 

You got away with pretending you didn't suck for a while there, and claiming that grinding gear = skill. Now you have (literally) nothing to hide behind, because when everyone is reduced to the exact same stats, all you can do is cry about how you can't win cause they took your crutch away.

Hahaha! Get a *********** grip on reality. You haven't a clue about my game performance and apparently didn't even read my post before blathering.

My point is: Players should not have to PVP without gear on, with or without things in slots, in order for it to be a level field. That's called an F'ed up system, period.

Check my post history cheesenuts, all comments on this subject since I joined the forums are in favor of skill > gear.

I call BS! My 38 sniper critted someone for 10k+ last night

RAGE QUIT'S (in a cloud of pink BioWare folly)

Wouldn't it have been easier to just remove expertise from all gear below 55? They've done similar things before to augments, armorings, mods, and so on. Then it would be just like it was pre 2.0 and it wouldn't have ruined the game for those who did not pre-order soon enough. As it is, the people who ordered were rewarded, which is fine, but everyone else, regardless of whether they pre-ordered or not is just screwed. People who pre-ordered in January should get early access, that is fine, but that should be content driven, and subs shouldn't be limited on rank, which doesn't have a darn thing to do with the new content. As it is, there really is no reason to even log on until the release. Pretty bad way to treat paying customers, and quite a slap in the face. It is like the message they want us to get from this is; "pre-order and give us money when we tell you or we will make you pay for it in the long run".

Geeee, I wonder why we are down to only 6 or 7 servers now? Could it be Bioware's lack of listening to its community or just its attitude that the customer will pay for it no matter what, so screw them?

Actually its pretty spot on. I pvped a ton last night. Once you figure out not to wear any expertise gear in low level PvP its pretty balanced. I've never been in so many back and forth, come down to the last minute matches. It was challenging, fun, and fulfilling. Not the one sided who has the most min/max players ROFL stomp matches pre 2.0 PvP. Sure they need to change some of the bolster numbers, but there headed in the right direction. If you need a game where you have a huge advantage over what you are playing, go to eBay buy an SNES, a game genie, and some games.

I'll repeat this for about the 1,000th time since I first posted it here last year. Skill should be > than gear.

You, or anyone else, cannot post a sensible reason why naked pvp, modless pvp, underleveled green garbage gear pvp, or anything else along those lines is how it should be. Why? Because there is no sensible reason. BW screwed up their new bolster attempt, and it needs fixing as they've already said they're looking into. Save that braindead ******** for someone as dumb as you who might buy it.

Hahaha! Get a *********** grip on reality. You haven't a clue about my game performance and apparently didn't even read my post before blathering.

 

My point is: Players should not have to PVP without gear on, with or without things in slots, in order for it to be a level field. That's called an F'ed up system, period.

 

Check my post history cheesenuts, all comments on this subject since I joined the forums are in favor of skill > gear.

Players having to grind against better geared players for weeks or months, getting there face smashed without a chance just to be on the same playing field is an fd-up system. And they already said the numbers and names things are mistakes. And anyone who thought things weren't going to be buggy are out of there minds.

I'll repeat this for about the 1,000th time since I first posted it here last year. Skill should be > than gear.

 

You, or anyone else, cannot post a sensible reason why naked pvp, modless pvp, underleveled green garbage gear pvp, or anything else along those lines is how it should be. Why? Because there is no sensible reason. BW screwed up their new bolster attempt, and it needs fixing as they've already said they're looking into. Save that braindead ******** for someone as dumb as you who might buy it.

U mad bro?