This question is silly.

 

Why play PVP and try to win? To win at a competitive activity.

 

Look at the vast majority of other online non-MMO PVP. There's almost never any tangible benefit (besides leveling up and unlocking different equipment in some modern FPS games, which isn't supposed to convey a significant advantage but frequently does due to bad game design). The motivation is to win. To crush your enemies. To know that you're better than them, and be able to humiliate them with your superior abilities.

 

There might be brackets, ranking, stat-tracking, etc. so that you can see for yourself, and others can see for themselves, just how unstoppably ****** you are. You almost never get anything in-game to further extend that advantage (except as mentioned above), just vanity unlocks so that you can flaunt your superiority.

 

And really, that's all that should be needed to encourage a competitive gamer to keep competing.

 

But you are ignoring the fact that those other PvP games have similar balance and exploit issues.

 

Look at the latest version of Madden and tell me the stats are similar for a team like the Patriots versus a team like the Dolphins... How many serious Madden players play with the Dolphins?

 

FPS? "No tangible benefit"? Sorry bro, but that is like telling me a SCAR or a M1 is just as good of a rifle as a M4A1 with ACOG (and you have to wait til level x). It's just not true... All PvP games have built in advantages you either choose to use them or you don't. There was nothing really wrong with this game from a competitive standpoint besides some class balance and resolve issues. People either did what they needed to do to be competitive or they didn't and QQ about it so much that we have the lovely system we have today.

 

 

The only thing this mess has shown is that the bads will still be bads, regardless of gear... So hopefully they will somewhat revert back to the way it was because this current system is broke and unbalanced because of the exploits present.....

Edited April 19, 2013 by L-RANDLE

You can however buy the rwz comms and spend them on conq gear, crazy logic is crazy

 

 

You still end up with only 2-4 pieces of gear... not 3/4.

Ah yes.. because liking the fact that I can't just randomly pwn newbs who didnt pick up Recruit gear yet makes me a biodrone.

 

Gotta love people putting that 'title' on anyone who doesn't agree with them without question.

 

Bolster > Recruit gear 'solution', that is my entire point. It's not perfect, but it's better.

 

It's better huh? <looks back at the past 100 pages> Ya, I don't think anyone agrees with you there.

 

You know what would have happened if they put in recruit gear instead of bolster, where the recruit gear was almost as good as Partisan, and there was no weird naked, half mod, pve better gear stuff? Two weeks ago some people would have whined for a few pages about how recruit gear is too good/bad, and nobody else would have cared or noticed.

 

But no, pissing off everyone, and putting in a system that even CASUALS are bewildered by and pissed off at- definitely the smarter choice amirite?

I perform the same now as I did at 50 (since all players are in the same game, skill stays the same, even with changes to the game) and I did state that constructive criticism (feedback) should be used. PvP is fine, are there bugs that need to be worked through? Of course there is, however none of them are nuclear.

 

I do empathise with you by the way; I have a one year old daughter that cries until she gets what she wants(since she lacks communication skills), the trick is regulating my daughter's expectations while we lack the full ability to communicate with each other.

 

I agree with the person you quoted and tbh it's you that's coming across as a right patronising **** grow up like your child

Well, tbh, I have only about 7 years of previous MMORPG experience (I am curious, which MMOs were you playing back in '94?).

 

So yes, bugs are to be expected, but not the blind release of a completly untested version of a mechanic which messes which the entire PVP content of a game. This is what many PVPers are rightly upset about.

 

As said before, we are not talking about a few - to be expected - bugs, which happen only under some circumstances. When 2.0 went live, NOTHING, with the new bolster was working properly at all:

 

No gear was often better than having gear (now partial empty gear is still often better than full gear) . Old PVP gear was completely crap in PVP (now this is only true for some itema IF you not remove the pvp crystal manually). PVE gear was boosted more than intended (this still is an issue).

 

Regardless from the fact that at least some of this was known from the PTS, you would not even have needed a PTS to see all this before launch. Just going in a WZ once and toy with your gear for 2 minutes would have shown you that the bolster is messed up.

 

So, is the sky falling? No.

 

Things are slowly getting better which each Patch. Maybe in a couple of weeks, everything will be fine and even better than before. Until then, however, I think valid criticism should not be dismissed as "naive" or QQ out of hand.

 

I agree criticism is needed and warranted but read some of these post, folks act like the end of pvp is upon us and that nothing short of a complete reversal will fix it.

 

I started out playing BBS games then Genie, The first true graphical MMO of sorts was The Realm. Since then I have played about 30 different titles, all of which had massive issues either in pvp or pve.

 

Several mainly SWG and EQ2 had issues so bad they reworked the whole systems multi times and due to Sony's poor response I left.

 

Age of Conan was probably the worse experience I have had in a mmo. Warhammer was probably the most fun I had in a largely pvp focused game since DAoC or SWG but they had issues with only being 2 factions and honestly dropped the ball on fixing it early enough cause folks to leave.

 

I can tolerate a lot from a gaming company If I (note I said I) feel that they are truly trying to fix an issue. So far even with a lot of the negative experiences I have had with MMOs, nothing Bioware has done so far has caused me to feel the least Like jumping ship.

I agree criticism is needed and warranted but read some of these post, folks act like the end of pvp is upon us and that nothing short of a complete reversal will fix it.

 

Well, we can surely agree on this one.

 

People getting worked up in the forums over nothing and often this is embarassing, even when there is a valid issue at hand.

 

Honestly I usually cannot take a posting which, for example, includes the words "Biofail" or "I just unsubbed" serious anyway.

 

Still, people on the "other side" of the fence in a discussion are often not any better, by outright dismissing any criticism as QQ.

Do you know a game called World of Warcraft?

I advise you to see: these players. I'll give you a tip: PVP resilience==Expertise.

 

This doesn't address what I said at all. I contended that the primary motivation of non-MMO PVPers is the competition rather than the grind.

 

Saying that WoW has a grind does not refute my contention.

 

MMOs, as a genre, are in an outlying position in the competitive landscape as ideas like "progression" are as central as ideas like "winning". Non-MMO gamers have no problem with ideas like "winning" being primary motivators, even when there is no point to playing besides winning (you don't unlock anything in RTS games, many FPS games, etc. except maybe vanity items).

 

But you are ignoring the fact that those other PvP games have similar balance and exploit issues.

 

Look at the latest version of Madden and tell me the stats are similar for a team like the Patriots versus a team like the Dolphins... How many serious Madden players play with the Dolphins?

 

FPS? "No tangible benefit"? Sorry bro, but that is like telling me a SCAR or a M1 is just as good of a rifle as a M4A1 with ACOG (and you have to wait til level x). It's just not true... All PvP games have built in advantages you either choose to use them or you don't. There was nothing really wrong with this game from a competitive standpoint besides some class balance and resolve issues. People either did what they needed to do to be competitive or they didn't and QQ about it so much that we have the lovely system we have today.

 

 

The only thing this mess has shown is that the bads will still be bads, regardless of gear... So hopefully they will somewhat revert back to the way it was because this current system is broke and unbalanced because of the exploits present.....

 

People play the Patriots on Madden because they are not balanced and provide an advantage when it comes to winning, absolutely yes. But playing the Patriots more doesn't gradually upgrade them into Superpatriots and give you an even larger advantage (discarding things like free agency, which could make any team into equivalent Superpatriots, as there is nothing inherent in the team or team-restricted unlocks to provide them their advantage, and the system intentionally self-regulates in any case).

 

Free agency comes as close to progression as that genre has, but online competitive play isn't 100% centered around custom teams, so that argument is drastically lessened. Everyone choosing the same stock team to be competitive means that the game has poor balance (quite possibly intentionally to reflect that real-life football teams aren't balanced either), but it doesn't convey any mechanical advantage not available to all players.

 

I even said in my original posts that some modern FPS games are poorly balanced because unlocks are unfairly good. This is not a central concept of the genre as it is with most MMOs. It wasn't even explicitly meant to be that way in the first place. On top of all of that, early unlocks and weapons in stock kits (e.g. SCAR, FAMAS, UMP in MW2) are basically as good as anything that can be unlocked later. G18s in MW2 and MP7 in MW3 are big counterexamples to this, as they *are* unfairly good unlocks, but they are seen more as negatives than positive by the community as a whole. I don't mention BO at all as Treyarch is godawful at game balance and shouldn't be allowed to make solitaire games, much less AAA FPS games.

 

Even then, most of what actually wins a COD game comes from tactics rather than unlocks. Drop-shotting/dolphin diving, quickscoping (when available), strafing to reduce recoil, map knowledge/positioning, etc. are not based on unlocks and can be executed equally by all players. Certainly it takes time to build map knowledge just as it takes time to build knowledge of tactics for teamplay in a WZ, but there's no element of progression to to that, and missing knowledge is not 100% reliant on grinding gameplay to remedy.

 

Quake-series, Unreal-series, even CS-series games have no unlocks at all, and all meaningful equipment is available to all players. Sure, CS has had oddball things like AWPs, but competitive play bans or limits access to blatant gamebreakers and those bans can easily be enforced via server rules to make them fair and universal.

 

All this brings back around to the original point - MMOs are the only genre where progression is considered an important motivator for competitive gameplay. Everyone else is fine with playing to win, and except in individual cases of poor game design, playing more conveys no bonuses other than experience and vanity.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Omophorus

Level 30s in empty shells walking around two-shotting 54s in EWH? Level 55s in PVE greens owning vs people in full Partisan? What could possibly be wrong?

 

Bolster is taking development time and money that they could be spending on important things!

it doesn't convey any mechanical advantage not available to all players..

And SWTOR does? Sorry but those games have the same "mechanical advantages" as SWTOR does. In an MMO its gear, in something like Madden its player stats (which can be changed/customized), COD its weapons (each with their own stat builds).

Even then, most of what actually wins a COD game comes from tactics rather than unlocks. Drop-shotting/dolphin diving, quickscoping (when available), strafing to reduce recoil, map knowledge/positioning, etc. are not based on unlocks and can be executed equally by all players. Certainly it takes time to build map knowledge just as it takes time to build knowledge of tactics for teamplay in a WZ, but there's no element of progression to to that, and missing knowledge is not 100% reliant on grinding gameplay to remedy.

Again SWTOR has these same qualities..

plus there is no real grind to get gear. BM tokens was a grind, the last version was a joke, but of course it still wasn't enough to satisfy people.

 

Quake-series, Unreal-series, even CS-series games have no unlocks at all, and all meaningful equipment is available to all players. Sure, CS has had oddball things like AWPs, but competitive play bans or limits access to blatant gamebreakers and those bans can easily be enforced via server rules to make them fair and universal...

So do you think the previous system was a gamebreaker versus what we have now?

 

All this brings back around to the original point - MMOs are the only genre where progression is considered an important motivator for competitive gameplay. Everyone else is fine with playing to win, and except in individual cases of poor game design, playing more conveys no bonuses other than experience and vanity....

No truely competitive person has a problem with meeting certain game critera in order to "be competitive". Regardless of what the ground rules are, they do what they need to "be competitive", whether we talking hours upon hours of "practice", utilizing "exploits", or picking the "right" team. This game is no different. If you like to compete for vanity sakes, how do you do that without getting said gear in order "to compete"?

 

Getting gear= playing to win

 

^^^because that is the way the game was designed initially

 

All games have ground rules, this is the only one where QQ led to a gamebreaking change, but do you think it actually helped? smh....

Edited April 19, 2013 by L-RANDLE

We're arguing past each other at this point.

 

I'm trying to make the point that gear-as-progression as a primary motivator for playing at all is ludicrous for a competitive activity, rather than competition as a primary motivator for playing.

 

There are a ridiculous number of people (including the guy I originally quoted) who present PVP as not worth doing if there isn't a gear grind. That attitude boggles my mind. PVP is worth doing with or without a gear grind because it's not the grind that defines it, but the competition.

 

What I'm trying to argue against is the idea that the grind is an essential component. I'm not arguing whether or not people will exploit any advantages available to them (they will) or that many games have systems to give people advantages (they often do).

 

People don't play Madden competitively to get a better player on their roster. They do it to win a football game. People would still play the hell out of CoD, BF, etc. if all of the unlocks were cosmetic because those same people were playing other games, including other console FPS games like Halo, where that's all there was (if there were any unlocks at all). Thousands of games of StarCraft are played every day despite having no reward other than winning and the opportunity to play stronger enemies if you do.

 

It's not my place to tell other people how to play, but I do fundamentally believe that it is destructive to the competitive aspects of the game to insist on gear progression in PVP. With or without gear progression, the success of SWTOR's PVP is going to be predicated on whether or not it fosters competition. If people don't feel like they can fight and win, they won't play. That is, and should be, where BioWare's efforts are focused, and how they go about doing it is ultimately secondary to whether or not they succeed.

We're arguing past each other at this point.

 

I'm trying to make the point that gear-as-progression as a primary motivator for playing at all is ludicrous for a competitive activity, rather than competition as a primary motivator for playing.

 

There are a ridiculous number of people (including the guy I originally quoted) who present PVP as not worth doing if there isn't a gear grind. That attitude boggles my mind. PVP is worth doing with or without a gear grind because it's not the grind that defines it, but the competition.

 

What I'm trying to argue against is the idea that the grind is an essential component. I'm not arguing whether or not people will exploit any advantages available to them (they will) or that many games have systems to give people advantages (they often do).

 

People don't play Madden competitively to get a better player on their roster. They do it to win a football game. People would still play the hell out of CoD, BF, etc. if all of the unlocks were cosmetic because those same people were playing other games, including other console FPS games like Halo, where that's all there was (if there were any unlocks at all). Thousands of games of StarCraft are played every day despite having no reward other than winning and the opportunity to play stronger enemies if you do.

 

It's not my place to tell other people how to play, but I do fundamentally believe that it is destructive to the competitive aspects of the game to insist on gear progression in PVP. With or without gear progression, the success of SWTOR's PVP is going to be predicated on whether or not it fosters competition. If people don't feel like they can fight and win, they won't play. That is, and should be, where BioWare's efforts are focused, and how they go about doing it is ultimately secondary to whether or not they succeed.

 

 

I'm in disbelief at some of your statements. Yes, people play Madden for competition, but they also don't choose a team that will not enable them to "be competitive". It would be similar to the Madden Devs deleting certain players online records because "it's not fair to other players". SWTOR is nothing more than Madden in SWTOR clothing. Every game in existance has been the same formula, get the best stats/use the best stats available and try to beat people/the game....

 

On top of that, it don't even matter which team I pick, my nephew will ROLL me with any scrub team on that game... Why? Because he put countless hours in becoming a excellent Madden player. So at the end of the day, stats don't mean ****.... Skill and Commitment always > than any game design/exploit/mechanic.... That is another problem here. Gear is looked at as this awe-inspiring, holy grail to PvP pwnage by players of certain ilks. Sorry, but its not...

 

Class/skill/tactics/ranked barriers always ruled SWTOR PvP. Gear was a every minor subset and was not exclusive to anyone. The gear gap argument was a joke to begin with, and now PvP is an outright mess because of the people claiming to "wanting to be competitive".

I'm in disbelief at some of your statements. Yes, people play Madden for competition, but they also don't choose a team that will not enable them to "be competitive". It would be similar to the Madden Devs deleting certain players online records because "it's not fair to other players". SWTOR is nothing more than Madden in SWTOR clothing. Every game in existance has been the same formula, get the best stats/use the best stats available and try to beat people/the game....

 

On top of that, it don't even matter which team I pick, my nephew will ROLL me with any scrub team on that game... Why? Because he put countless hours in becoming a excellent Madden player. So at the end of the day, stats don't mean ****.... Skill and Commitment always > than any game design/exploit/mechanic.... That is another problem here. Gear is looked at as this awe-inspiring, holy grail to PvP pwnage by players of certain ilks. Sorry, but its not...

 

Disbelief why?

 

Your example does not have any direct relation to what I said. If you read my post, I even agree with you that people will make an effort to gain every advantage available.

 

There is a key difference between what we're each trying to say. People *IN THIS THREAD* have explicitly said that the PVP isn't worth doing without the gear grind. The goal is thus the attaining of better gear, rather than the winning of warzones. Maybe the reason for attaining the better gear is to win more warzones, but to imply that the goal of winning warzones isn't worth pursuing without the gear is where I take issue. Warzones are worth winning in and of themselves, gear or no gear. If BioWare wants to make it so that playing a lot of Warzones allows you to have better gear and win more often, that is A-OK. I don't care in the slightest about it. I do care about people acting as though the gear grind is a necessary component, and focusing more on the gear than whether or not the actual PVP itself is fun.

 

And yes, skill + commitment + experience are ways to level the playing field. But before 2.0, which is all any of us really have to go on, even the most skilled, committed, experienced player was at a woeful disadvantage when they dinged 50 (and, on the flipside, the skilled, committed, experienced player on a new class could be effective against those many levels higher than themselves in lowbie thanks to bolster). That's what 2.0 bolster is trying to address. It's doing a bad job of it right now, certainly, but more of the same from 1.0 (a big gear grind providing a massive advantage) is not a good alternative.

 

A player in Recruit vs. a player of the same class in augged EWH in 1.x was at a >20% HP deficit (potentially 30-35%, even over 40% in the worst case scenarios), significant Expertise deficit (giving the EWH-geared player a 5-10% swing in damage dealt/received before any other stats came into play), down easily over 100 bonus damage, down significantly on Surge, etc. Those kinds of stat differences are enough to eclipse skill and commitment, except in the cases of really good undergeared players versus really bad geared players.

 

Class/skill/tactics/ranked barriers always ruled SWTOR PvP. Gear was a every minor subset and was not exclusive to anyone. The gear gap argument was a joke to begin with, and now PvP is an outright mess because of the people claiming to "wanting to be competitive".

 

The gear gap exacerbated the problem considerably, and is a design choice BioWare is choosing not to repeat. It aided significantly in stifling competition, along with the more crippling barriers.

 

Class barriers have been eroded somewhat due to rebalancing and we'll see how bad the disparity is once 2.0 PVP has settled out a bit more (though I'm sure it'll never, ever be perfect). Skill is what it is, and skill difference is an inherent part of any competitive activity. Tactics, especially team tactics and coordination in team-based gameplay, will always be a problem and there is no solution other than adding more PVP variety (which BioWare should do, but that's its own thing).

 

PVP isn't an outright mess because people want to compete. PVP is an outright mess because BioWare did a poor job of implementing a system to make that possible. The core goal is a good goal, and a laudable goal, but the efforts undertaken to obtain it were neither good nor laudable. That doesn't change that the goal is valuable and worth pursuing, or that a more competitive PVP environment is a bad thing for SWTOR.

I'm in disbelief at some of your statements. Yes, people play Madden for competition, but they also don't choose a team that will not enable them to "be competitive". It would be similar to the Madden Devs deleting certain players online records because "it's not fair to other players". SWTOR is nothing more than Madden in SWTOR clothing. Every game in existance has been the same formula, get the best stats/use the best stats available and try to beat people/the game....

This whole argument is based on a false analogy.

 

For your analogy to be true, people would need to be allowed to choose what gear they want. A quest terminal would have to offer a quest that states: "Choose one of the following: Conqueror, EWH, Recruit, Champion."

 

Transversely, people would be forced to suffer through X number of games playing Phins, Lions, Browns before they were allowed to play Pats, Niners, or Ravens.

 

On top of that, it don't even matter which team I pick, my nephew will ROLL me with any scrub team on that game... Why? Because he put countless hours in becoming a excellent Madden player. So at the end of the day, stats don't mean ****.... Skill and Commitment always > than any game design/exploit/mechanic.... That is another problem here. Gear is looked at as this awe-inspiring, holy grail to PvP pwnage by players of certain ilks. Sorry, but its not...

Except there is no disparity between any two teams in Madden that equals the difference in Recruit and EWH. Could people in Recruit be competitive? Absolutely. Could they ROFLSTOMP? Never. People bring the pawnage with crappy Madden teams all the time.

So ya, I like all the Dav talk on what is meant to be on the chnages. And it is clear they have to do even more fixing of the armor / stats & PVP.

 

However I am most unhappy with the following.

 

I spent a great deal of time in building up Com's/Points for PVP armor with. (not that it even was working right at the time.) But never the less you have taken all the time I spent in getting PVP armor and basicly come back and told me tuff luck you have to start over for your PVP armor.

Sorry SWTOR... You stink!

 

So ya, I like all the Dav talk on what is meant to be on the chnages. And it is clear they have to do even more fixing of the armor / stats & PVP.

 

However I am most unhappy with the following.

 

I spent a great deal of time in building up Com's/Points for PVP armor with. (not that it even was working right at the time.) But never the less you have taken all the time I spent in getting PVP armor and basicly come back and told me tuff luck you have to start over for your PVP armor.

Sorry SWTOR... You stink!

 

This gear reset happens for pve as well, so yea.

Why can't you emergency patch it?

 

A week is a long time to have a broken and exploitable system in warzones.

 

Cause they dont give a ****. Plain and Simple

Firstly hi all. Ive only been playing for a short time and this is my 1st forum post. Ive spent my time so far getting to know the game, find the side i enjoy playing on and which toon type i enjoy playing. Ive stayed away from pvp while i learn. I'm at the point now where i feel comfortable enough to start being more sociable and was looking forward to entering my 1st war zone. i was fully expecting to get my *** handed to me by more experienced and better geared players but in time i would be dieing less and getting more kills as there supposed to be a learning curve i.e. my skill as a player would improve as well as earning better gears etc. now if i understand this bolster system correctly even when it works properly its giving an unfair advantage to new players putting them on the same level as some one who has been playing for a year or more and has spent their time,effort and money to develop their toon and skills. to me this seems like pvp will just stagnate. whats the point in over coming a difficulty or challenge when you will be no better of for it? to me it seems it's there to attract new players and make it easy for them while saying a big F you to the already existing players or am i completely off the mark here?

Firstly hi all. Ive only been playing for a short time and this is my 1st forum post. Ive spent my time so far getting to know the game, find the side i enjoy playing on and which toon type i enjoy playing. Ive stayed away from pvp while i learn. I'm at the point now where i feel comfortable enough to start being more sociable and was looking forward to entering my 1st war zone. i was fully expecting to get my *** handed to me by more experienced and better geared players but in time i would be dieing less and getting more kills as there supposed to be a learning curve i.e. my skill as a player would improve as well as earning better gears etc. now if i understand this bolster system correctly even when it works properly its giving an unfair advantage to new players putting them on the same level as some one who has been playing for a year or more and has spent their time,effort and money to develop their toon and skills. to me this seems like pvp will just stagnate. whats the point in over coming a difficulty or challenge when you will be no better of for it? to me it seems it's there to attract new players and make it easy for them while saying a big F you to the already existing players or am i completely off the mark here?

 

First off, welcome to the game. I think you hit on what is probably one of the main goals underlying this change to bolster--converting Free2Play into subs. If they get the taste for WZ pvp (which according to BW's metrics is one of the top pieces of content in game), they might just consider dropping that $15 a month for unlimited access.

now if i understand this bolster system correctly even when it works properly its giving an unfair advantage to new players putting them on the same level as some one who has been playing for a year or more and has spent their time,effort and money to develop their toon and skills.

 

Actually, from what I've observed in lowbie brackets so far, this is not the case. You can walk into a wz at level 10 with the gear you're wearing from the starter planet and have better stats than the level 29 in full moddable gear with or without any mods/armorings/etc. So, you level you get penalized....keep your gear up to date as you level you get penalized. This is stupid.

 

Level 55 wzs I cannot say (I've boycotted max bracket until this mess is fixed), although I've heard bolster is still broke in that bracket too (shouldn't even BE bolster at max level).

 

Also, don't plan on actually learning anything, or honing your skill at pvp...you die so quickly there's no time to actually USE any skill.

 

Welcome to SWTOR tho

Edited April 20, 2013 by painterwhit

This gear reset happens for pve as well, so yea.

 

Actually PvE gear stays relevant when new gear is reset. It's still high enough in order to allow you the opportunity to gain the new set of gear. In PvP however, with this wonderful implementation of bolster, PvP gear was stripped, made into PvE gear, and made obsolete.

 

If your DreadGuard gear was downgraded to say, Columi, and you all were then forced to find ways to get your new Arkanian sets, THAT would be similar to what happened to WH/EWH gear in PvP. But I'm sure that would have been fine with the PvE community, would never even see a thread about how asinine of a system that would have been, right?

Actually PvE gear stays relevant when new gear is reset. It's still high enough in order to allow you the opportunity to gain the new set of gear. In PvP however, with this wonderful implementation of bolster, PvP gear was stripped, made into PvE gear, and made obsolete.

 

If your DreadGuard gear was downgraded to say, Columi, and you all were then forced to find ways to get your new Arkanian sets, THAT would be similar to what happened to WH/EWH gear in PvP. But I'm sure that would have been fine with the PvE community, would never even see a thread about how asinine of a system that would have been, right?

 

You raise a good point, but I think you might be overstating the case just a bit. I'm willing to concede that the PvE gear grind is way more involved in terms of time and cost as compared to the PvP gear grind. It's really not that hard to get Partisan all told. I'm a scrub and had it in 3 days.

 

The really worrisome idea (worrisome to both PvE and PvP) that the change to WH/ EWH brings to the table is the precedent BW has set by making a radical change to the itemization of a gear set with no warning. To those who say gear resets happen, deal with it; how many of you saw them stripping expertise from WH/ EWH in the xpac? It blindsided all of us. That's the problem with what they did to WH/ EWH.

You raise a good point, but I think you might be overstating the case just a bit. I'm willing to concede that the PvE gear grind is way more involved in terms of time and cost as compared to the PvP gear grind. It's really not that hard to get Partisan all told. I'm a scrub and had it in 3 days.

 

The really worrisome idea (worrisome to both PvE and PvP) that the change to WH/ EWH brings to the table is the precedent BW has set by making a radical change to the itemization of a gear set with no warning. To those who say gear resets happen, deal with it; how many of you saw them stripping expertise from WH/ EWH in the xpac? It blindsided all of us. That's the problem with what they did to WH/ EWH.

They did say they intended for WH/EWH to be better than normal PVE gear though, but that is assuming they fix it(which is well, what I was assuming I guess).

As said by others, this is real proof that they do not do their testing. Sorry but you really need to do better Bioware and stop hiring people who don't care.

 

5 months later....Defeated by lolbolster by Discharge (145,439 damage).

They did say they intended for WH/EWH to be better than normal PVE gear though, but that is assuming they fix it(which is well, what I was assuming I guess).

 

I'm not knocking you at all really. Gear resets do happen, and I think all of us were prepared for that. I had begun stacking comms in prep for 2.0 Partisan gear since before early access. Like I said, I just find it worrisome that BW feels making such a radical change to a gear set is something they can do literally overnight without much regard (other than some patronizing remark about how concerned they are, etc. etc.)

This whole argument is based on a false analogy.

 

For your analogy to be true, people would need to be allowed to choose what gear they want. A quest terminal would have to offer a quest that states: "Choose one of the following: Conqueror, EWH, Recruit, Champion."

 

Transversely, people would be forced to suffer through X number of games playing Phins, Lions, Browns before they were allowed to play Pats, Niners, or Ravens.

 

 

Except there is no disparity between any two teams in Madden that equals the difference in Recruit and EWH. Could people in Recruit be competitive? Absolutely. Could they ROFLSTOMP? Never. People bring the pawnage with crappy Madden teams all the time.

 

Its not false. People to "choose" what type of gear they wear in a WZ. People choose what stats they value. People choose not to augment free recruit gear to improve their performance. And while your are "forced" to get currency in order to advance this, the fact is you still choose what you want to be when you play this game.

 

How hard was it to get currency to make these choices? It was 100% player controlled and the system was not broke. Were there performance issues in the "gap"? Slightly, but it was more about what class you were, and team comp (random in PuGs, so you hit your point or you roll snake eyes sometimes)not the gear differences between players(unless you chose to wear leveling greens instead of the free recruit gear). All you have to do is have some minor commitment to this game, because you are "rewarded" merely for participation.

 

You somewhat validated my point. At the end of the day, stats don't mean ****. People bring it with crappy teams in Madden because they are +skilled at that game even though the set stats for a given team might be on the order of 30% below the top teams. This is about the same stated gap between gear tiers (and that is comparing one AC to that same AC). All things being equal, skill will always trump stat differences. This is the lesson that the bads need to learn about games..

 

Once you get to that point when you examine your own personal gaming habits, you will see that the real issue is class balance.. And recruits can ROFLSTOMP. Previously, smashers in Recruit undressed certain classes that had "WH" titles in their names. I mean people sitting there facetanking, backpeddling, triple capping, bads. All geared to the teeth. Skills and game knowledge can overcome stat differences, even in this one. What gear did do is also enable the skilled players to overcome the bads on their team. Now they have pretty much installed a handicap for bads...

 

TL;DR

1. The gear gap was, and still is, highly over exaggerated.

2. Skill and Commitment trumps stats 100% of the time.