Let's Talk About PvP - Podcast ft Snave, Shek'shas, N1ghtrain and Krea

That is such a flawed, circular argument I barely know where to start. Are you actually saying, that if only PvPer had grown accustomed to being f***** in the a** we would not complain about its continuation??? Really? Have you ANY clue how damaging 5.0 and now this mastercrap has been to PvP? The glory days was the 3.3 - 4.X era and the only downside was bolster being somewhat dysfunctional. BW took a gamble with Command System and they have later admitted it was ill conceived. Problem is that PvPer are now locked into gear progression and thus we are now subjugated to this crystalcrap.

JESUS!

None of this is difficult! That is what really and always pisses me off. There are SO MANY THINGS in this game that should be straight forward and obvious to fix, and yet we have systems failures and bugs all the time. Hail cartel market!

5.0+ has been terrible for pvp gearing. I agree. Pvp should only need to grind gear when +5 levels and an expansion are added to the game. This game went from one EXTREME to another: 4.X super EZ mode to 5.X multiple tiers with super grind.

The pre-KOTFE gearing system of 2.x to the end of 3.x was probably the best, in my opinion. The first tier of pvp gear was very easy to obtain, but the ranked tier was a long grind for non-ranked pvp'ers. (think Obroan 168's vs 174 Brutalizer gear)



EDITED -- because I can't seem to put a sentence together today.

You probably were not here during the launch of the game but the pvp gearing was almost equally as bad.

So to answer your question.
Yes, the pvp'ers would be equally as upset if not more so.
Because bioware essentially did a 1 step forward 3 steps back thing with this whole fiasco.

I was here when you could craft pvp shells. I've been here since the dawn of time.

I'm trying to tell you guys that 4.0 PVP gearing was NOT THE SAME as 2.0 - 3.X. Ranked high-end pvp gear was far more difficult grind than the 208 4.0 gear, unless you did ranked arenas.

Are you implying that had we never had a better gearing system before, we wouldn't be asking for one now that we have a really tedious gearing system? This statement implies that it would have been better to have never been exposed to a better gearing system because it would silence the current dissent of players who are unhappy with what we have now. That's pretty dangerous thinking, because it invites the idea that instead of fixing issues with the game, you should instead leave the players exposed to those issues so that if things become worse later, they won't dissent, because they wouldn't know any better.

To counter this point, we've never had a better engine than the current one. Yet people still claim that they have issues with the current engine's limitations, despite not being exposed to a better engine in the past, in this game.

What will happen instead, if you fail to fix these issues, is that people will simply go play another game. If that's what you want, that's fine. Though I doubt that that's particularly healthy for this game as a whole. People did the same with H1Z1. It failed to address very basic issues, so instead of the playerbase sticking with the game, they moved on to the next one. Same thing with Black Ops 4. Failed to fix issues, playerbase moved on to Apex Legends.

This isn't anything new. You can't choose to not fix glaring issues with the system and then also hope that the players just continue playing blindly, not wanting improvements and optimizations. That's greedy corporate thinking right there.

I think the issue is that many folks here equate easy gearing to a good gearing system.

That's where I fundamentally disagree. How many times can we do the same warzone with the same baddies over and over and over? I need a pvp grind to give me something to do. But we shouldn't have to grind new gear every time someone at BioWare sneezes. It should be once a year with a level cap increase and expansion.

The current 5.10 system is awful. i'm not arguing that.

^This.


Also.

You guys mentioned a thing about setting like standardized stats in pvp as to fix the issue with having to grind gear, so people could focus on the mechanics of pvp.

-So what I am going to suggest is a simplified version of another game I played during my absence.
Guild Wars 2 has a closed competitive environment called Spvp ( Structured PvP)
In this area of the game. Gear does not matter.
That's right, gear does not have an impact on your stats.
Instead they have generic pvp stats tied to amulets which you choose before you enter into a match.
So this got me thinking about this game and it's Role mechanics.

Because this game is a little more simplified then GW2 and everyone has a role or spec that they would use I thought, Why not have a system where before you queue for PvP you selected your role and then stats For ex.

Damage-
Role 1 -Gives more acc than crit.
Role 2- gives more crit than acc.
While standardizing stats like end, alac, mastery, power etc.
Obviously because it would be a damage role- you will get more into the stat of power then end.

And you would do this type of thing for Tank and Heals.
Giving people the choice of what specific stat they want to specialize with or benefit from, so every choice has a small downside, but you remove the gear grind entirely.
Then you could focus rewards for pvp to be cosmetic and/or achievement based.

Their are, as some people will guess, clear up and downsides to this.
The upside is that this will allow for everything to be standardized and possibly easier to balance in a pvp environment. As then you just have to tweak numbers on the ability or roles themselves.

No one is at a disadvantage because of gear.
Any one that wants to try pvp can now enter without the added stress of gearing.

Re-introduction of WZ currency- to buy the sweet new lightsabers/pistols/blasters/cannons/nudes or recipes.




Downsides-
You lose the ability to customize the stats as you want.
I think for some people this would be pretty big as they like to have one thing over another.


This would require input from the community to implement as well. People would need to discuss what is an optimal stat selection for damage, for tanks, and for healers.

Ive also enjoyed some Gw2 pvp inbetween taking a small break last year.

Not only do Gw2 make gear unnecessary, they also have one only pvp bracket.
They basically boost everyone to max lvl and give them access to all abilities, builds and gear.
This system would work perfectly in swtor and may even work better than in Gw2?

The reason I think it would work better is Gw2 has way more build options, class options based on weapon types (you can swap mid battle that changes your role). Swtor’s setup is much simpler and easier to work out.

That is the only draw back I found with Gw2. The learning curve is vertical if you aren’t already max lvl and have some knowledge about the builds and how they work. Trying to enter max lvl pvp with lvl 30 character is a massive shock. Even watching YouTube guides and vids aren’t much help at those lvls because systems change as you get higher and you’ve not even encounter them at lvl 30.

Swtor is so much easier to learn compared to Gw2 and I see no reason it couldnt work here. Even with the near vertical learning curve in Gw2, they still make it work.
We could then get rid of lowbie and mid brackets and people could actually pvp to lvl again.

That's literally what I proposed three posts up.

For each character, just make pre-set stat distributions based on alacrity thresholds, per spec:

1.4s GCD - very bursty
1.3s GCD - bursty and quick
1.2s GCD - less bursty
1.1s GCD - full sustain

Having stats chosen per spec (as opposed to granted through gear) would mean that these FUN higher alacrity thresholds could be implemented, and PVP stats would give another avenue through which classes in PVP could be balanced without affecting their PVE performance. You could buff their damage in PVE while reducing respective stat allocations offered to a spec in PVP to a net change of zero, for example.

This also means that there is no longer ANY gear gate to PVP. Anybody who wishes to try it out, can just queue up and enjoy the competition. If some progress is warranted so there's a carrot for players, unassembled components and CXP can still be awarded through PVP (and maybe the worldboss quest can be allowed to be completed through PVP too).

New players would get so many new abilities when they queue for the first time. Maybe PVP should have a tutorial instance, like GSF, for that, with parse dummies and explanations, if they go with that route.

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edit: I'll probably be unable to contribute more to the discussion, since my sub should be lapsing any moment.

My bad. I honestly didn't go back through and read before I started posting. So my apologies.