I realize that everyone has their own opinions on PvP and how it should work so I'll just go ahead and declare that this is my opinion and you can agree or disagree and whatever you believe is right is valid.

 

The reason I say PvP isn't going to work the way its set up is largely because of the way PvP and PvE are designed to exclude each other.

 

Simple facts are the golden age of PvP in WoW was during Season 6/Tier 7 where raid gear and PvP gear were interchangeable and equal to each other.

 

PvPer's could raid, PvE players could PvP, neither was at a significant disadvantage to each other.

 

This statement is actually completely collaborated by the fact that cross server battle grouping was not introduced to WoW til after the PvE and PvP gear progression bifurcated, once PvP players and PvE players were separated from each other by Resilience, cross server battle groups were necessary to keep Battlegrounds full. And concurrently LFD for PvE was introduced after this period too.

 

Simple facts are that when you take a game with several million players and bifurcate the gear progression system, and it requires cross server systems to fill the various game systems that the variant players engage in, its safe to say that when you take a game that has less than a million players, and bifurcate the gear progression system from the start with no cross server warzones and no LFD system, that you're basically causing a larger deficit in your available per server population in regards to their willingness to participate in one side of the game or the other.

 

Segregation of PvE and PvP serves one single purpose BioWare and that single purpose is a very lazy subscription extension tactic which basically tries to get people to chase two carrots on two different sticks and thus engage them for longer periods.

 

But to be frank, its not fun being forced to do that. I can't raid hard mode 16 mans in PvP gear, I can't compete in 50 bracket PvP with PvE progression gear. And thus I must chose one or the other.

 

And in such you find gaps, warzone matches take longer to become available, there is less available population for both sides of the equation and FP's and Operations have their short falls in time as well as players start to unsub to wait for more content.

 

Simple facts are you should have never have bifurcated the gear progression by adding Expertise, PvP and PvE gear should have been largely equal to each other other than design, and then you'd have had players engaging in both sides of the situation.

 

Personally as a PvP focused player, given the time commitment required to reach Valor Rank 60 and beyond and to gear up on the PvP side of the fence, I simply do not have time, as a mature adult who has other responsibilities, to focus on the PvE side of the game too. And my friends that raid commonly will not PvP because they get constantly ROFL-stomped by geared up PvP players.

 

So in the end, by alienating the two styles of play from each other through their progression, you lose the potential of both kinds of players dabbling in both parts of the end game content.

 

Effectively, PvP and PvE both would have more players available were the two sides of the game not more or less mutually exclusive without having invested a large amount of time into having two different sets of gear.

 

I'm not sure if you can bank on enough people having no lives for this to work BioWare. Blizzard pulled it off, but only after a long stretch where they'd already hooked enough hard core no lifers to make it functional. You've come out of the gate trying the same thing and where are your million subscribers now? Most of them have unsubbed to wait and see if the games content becomes worth a subscription fee.

 

Gating off content by making it gear restrictive is just bad design theory in general. On paper it equals longer subscription times, in reality, it generally equals people unsubscribing because theres only a certain amount of grind anyone will tolerate before they realize they've done this all before in a bunch of other games and the fact that its Star Wars isn't making up for it.

 

Anyways thats my opinion, I haven't even launched into what a failure OPvP has become and thats largely a whole different kettle of fish but it really amazes me that the team that was responsible for so many epic keep sieges in DAoC had any hand in this game at all, when the OPvP in TOR is literally a ghost town on most populated servers and you literally had to implement clickable objects in the Ilum battle field to make up for the fact that there was no way anyone was going to get 30 kills in a day there cause nobody goes there half the time. Thats just a complete and utter failure to deliver on so many levels its fairly sad. The war looked epic in all the cinematics, but its just a fake, lifeless war being waged by walkers and trooper carriers that never do anything except get blown up by random passer's by on occasion.

 

The only part of PvP that is working is War zones, and those are only working partially. The 10 - 49 bracket is fun, the 50 bracket is a chore and slowly getting less and less active even on the busiest servers and the population imbalance between Republic and Empire is disappointing in the extreme.

 

It is my belief that this needs rapid attention. But then, again, it is only my opinion.

Forget all of that, as long as kill trading is considered "a clever use of game mechanics" by GMs there really is no point to warzones or opvp as intended in Ilium. It was a real twilight zone moment for me to read that kill trading is not considered a bannable offense.....gg BW.

Some good points. Will EA/BW wake up in time, or will SWTOR be a huge write off?

I think you have the timeline wrong for WoW.PVP would not raid in pvp gear after season 2 or 3 if i recall; when they nerfed how you get pvp gear in BC.They dindt like the fact that pvper could get easy gear and raid with it.I remember being able to do pve content in merciless gear(season 2) and it hasnt been really possible since then(you were gimping yourself aside from pvp weapon)

hmm yes, some very good points..I have two questions though.

What the hell does bifurcate mean and why did you use it 4 times?

Edited February 4, 2012 by Barnacleface

Forget all of that, as long as kill trading is considered "a clever use of game mechanics" by GMs there really is no point to warzones or opvp as intended in Ilium. It was a real twilight zone moment for me to read that kill trading is not considered a bannable offense.....gg BW.

 

Why would people be banned for kill trading? Bioware can't force people to pvp correctly. Players can choose to kill each other however they want. If they want to carebear kill trade each other it's not against any game codes.

i did 16m nim raids in battlemaster gear and had no problem

Why would people be banned for kill trading? Bioware can't force people to pvp correctly. Players can choose to kill each other however they want. If they want to carebear kill trade each other it's not against any game codes.

 

 

Sure as the heck won't make them better PVPers. How sad would it be to be someone that fuzzed like this to get the shiny gear, then went and got rolled repeatedly no matter in their full BM or whatever because they didn't know how to PVP any better than some new guy on a fresh 50?

 

I think this will A) give folks that want their cheese but no burger their cheese so they can sit around in Fleet feeling special and B) not change a gorram thing about who gets rolled and who doesn't in actual PVP.

 

Is it lame? Won't lie; it's lame. Honestly though, who wants to be the guy rolling around in full BM in Huttball getting faceplanted by experienced folk that've PVP'd their faces off for weeks/months in every other type of gear there is, including full BM?

 

I don't wanna be that guy.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Uruare

pvp isn't going to work for most of us because most of us (who frequent this board) want something more from the pvp than just the pvp itself (whether that is gear, rating, affecting the gameworld etc).

 

pvp is going to work for the casual player who cares for nothing but doing the odd warzone and do some mutual ************ kill trading at 50.

 

the game can probably survive on the second type, so us in the first bracket either have to stop caring and become casual or move on.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Roak

Totally agree with the OP. PvP and PvE is seperate and unless your playing this game 20 out of 24 hours a day..you are not going to be functional top end player at both. I chose to focus on pvp , I find killing the same mob over and over boring..thats just me. But people that want to pve shouldn't be forced to be fodder. Anyway..I've kind of decided this isn't the game for me..so I got another week or so left.

Op, you couldn't be more wrong.

Op, you couldn't be more wrong.

 

Well everyone has an opinion and that's yours. Thanks for your input.

Some good points. Will EA/BW wake up in time, or will SWTOR be a huge write off?

 

Wont happen, the few that shed tears is out weighed immensely by everyone else, they will fix things in time, again its been out almost 2 months, so wait or um just go...

Edited February 4, 2012 by mordredz

hmm yes, some very good points..I have two questions though.

What the hell does bifurcate mean and why did you use it 4 times?

 

Bifurcation means to split one item down two paths.

 

Gear progression is one item of the games dynamics, which effectively gets split going into the 50 range where you have PvE gear sets with PvE specific beneficial set bonuses, and PvP sets with PvP specific beneficial set bonuses and neither opposite number is as effective as the intended in reversed scenarios.

 

Sure you can do HM 16 mans in BM gear but you're probably able to do that due to the other 15 people in 4/5 Columi sets. Your gear is adequate, and their gear is making up for your deficit.