Was PvP gear ever really the problem?

[Mafic]

Anyone who has played a CoD title knows a prestige system is a problem of balance for players who decide to start over from level 1. The Legion pvp model follows that almost to a T.

As it's been said, you are a detriment to your team if you don't have certain abilities/talents unlocked. You're more a detriment than if you're 5% under powered as it stands now.

Every time you prestige in Legion, you start back over with no unlocked talent/abilities as you would in CoD with baseline guns. Everyone knows, the majority of weapons/perks/equipment unlocked at later levels are simply superior to what you start out with at level 1 in those games. It really won't be any different here.

There's way more at play here with using this system in WoW than CoD though. Everyone in CoD has access to the same weapons/perks/equipment. In WoW, there will ultimately be huge discrepancies of balance/power between any given class, based on what they gain and when they gain it with the new honor system. This alone will never be balanced. What little balance existed between classes/specs, this sort of feature guarantees the problem remains exacerbated more than before.

While it works decently well in CoD, it's going to be a complete shit-show in WoW. If anyone really believes the game is going to be more balanced in Legion, not only are they a delusional white knight but they literally have no understanding of pvp.

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this though. Activision has made it a core feature in the CoD franchise. Why wouldn't they want to see this shit-model applied to another title?

The full premades with full honor levels stomping on players that think they are stepping into a balance PVP experience because gear has been normalized are in for a rude awakening unfortunately.

[evogsr]

The full premades with full honor levels stomping on players that think they are stepping into a balance PVP experience because gear has been normalized are in for a rude awakening unfortunately.

For sure. I'd rather have Legion not launch until sometime next year at the cost of subs, than have to play with this shit. I get that a player can choose *not* to prestige, and keep all of their power pooled - but mark my words, maybe not at launch but sometime Blizzard will put power based incentives behind prestiges when they realize cosmetics aren't enough and undermine this whole failed re-working.

[Mafic]

For sure. I'd rather have Legion not launch until sometime next year at the cost of subs, than have to play with this shit. I get that a player can choose *not* to prestige, and keep all of their power pooled - but mark my words, maybe not at launch but sometime Blizzard will put power based incentives behind prestiges when they realize cosmetics aren't enough and undermine this whole failed re-working.

Blizz has done a poor job communicating that PVP gear is essentially normalized in WoD with scaling up the greens/blues and imposing a hard cap in PVP instances. A lot of players assume that there is some big gap in WoD PVP currently which isn't true at all.

[Deleted]

Anyone who has played a CoD title knows a prestige system is a problem of balance for players who decide to start over from level 1. The Legion pvp model follows that almost to a T.

As it's been said, you are a detriment to your team if you don't have certain abilities/talents unlocked. You're more a detriment than if you're 5% under powered as it stands now.

Wrong.

We are talking about 6 PvP Talents that players can be apart from each other.
The issue back then however was that players were more than 50% in HP, stats and even more damage apart.

Like I have said. in WoD the issue is no longer that persistant because of PvP Scaling where you will scale up no matter what gear you wear and your pvp gear will scale up. The gear levels are alot mor narrow now and equip is alot easier the access.

This however has not been the case before WoD.

In MoP it was common that a person with full honor pvp gear had 25%-50% less HP and stats than a conquest player and a freshly 100 had 100% less.
This was a gear gap that was unable to overcome no matter how good of a player you have been.

In Legion all you miss are a few PvP talents which can be quite powerful, are nothing compared to the issue that before Legion and WoD you wouldn't even be able to win if a player was afk.

[Schattenlied]

As we know, Blizzard is removing, or at least significantly reducing, the effect of gear in PvP in Legion. While this seems good on paper, after giving it more thought, I came to the conclusion that the gear was never really the problem for me.

Whenever I lost in PvP and the opponent had better gear, I was OK with it. I knew that all I needed to do was play more, get the gear, and I would beat them without problems. Never did I think 'fuck this game, PvP gear is ruining it'. But the times I thought 'fuck this game, class balance is nonexistent' were countless.

I just can't shake the feeling that Blizzard is fixing the wrong problem. Maybe they are in for an unpleasant surprise.

They aren't doing it because of gear disparity, they are doing it so they can very precisely control the stats each individual class has in PvP... It's another form of class balance, so that if they need to they can adjust health and damage values at a stat level instead of by buffing or nerfing specific abilities.


I'm pretty sure they still said you can get gear from PvP (it will just be normal gear, probly without PvE set bonuses), it wouldn't make sense otherwise because Ilvl still matters in PvP for your stat scaling, if there wasn't any PvP gear people would have to PvE to gear up for PvP, and no PvPer would find that acceptable.

[samwel93]

Every time you prestige in Legion, you start back over with no unlocked talent/abilities as you would in CoD with baseline guns. Everyone knows, the majority of weapons/perks/equipment unlocked at later levels are simply superior to what you start out with at level 1 in those games. It really won't be any different here.

Actually a lot of the time you start with some of the best guns in CoD games. Hell the starting SMG in Black Ops 3 is by far the best gun in the game no contest at all.

[evogsr]

Wrong.

We are talking about 6 PvP Talents that players can be apart from each other.
The issue back then however was that players were more than 50% in HP, stats and even more damage apart.

Like I have said. in WoD the issue is no longer that persistant because of PvP Scaling where you will scale up no matter what gear you wear and your pvp gear will scale up. The gear levels are alot mor narrow now and equip is alot easier the access.

This however has not been the case before WoD.

In MoP it was common that a person with full honor pvp gear had 25%-50% less HP and stats than a conquest player and a freshly 100 had 100% less.
This was a gear gap that was unable to overcome no matter how good of a player you have been.

In Legion all you miss are a few PvP talents which can be quite powerful, are nothing compared to the issue that before Legion and WoD you wouldn't even be able to win if a player was afk.

Wrong to your wrong. It's 18 abilities/talents. They aren't unlocked by rows. They are unlocked individually going down column order.

Since I was talking about the difference of power currently, players will indeed be more of a detriment in legion because of pvp talents, or rather lacking them compared to how it is now.

This isn't across the board, but IE: I'd be hard pressed to want to bring an arms war that didn't have sharpen blade (46) unlocked or a frost dk that didn't have Tundra Stalker (43). Obviously not all of the right column talents/abilities are superior to everything left of them, but for a lot of specs, a lot of them are - underneath the first row.

Actually a lot of the time you start with some of the best guns in CoD games. Hell the starting SMG in Black Ops 3 is by far the best gun in the game no contest at all.

This is an extreme exception to the rule. See every other weapon type. See every other CoD before Blops3.

Again, this can be balanced easily in a game like CoD. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to figure out why this is a problem in WoW.

[ro9ue]

It was definitely the gear.

If you've been around a long time you've probably heard "Resilience ruined the game". Every since they started segregating PVP gear, it's been shit.

[Deleted]

No NEVER its bullshit that they are doing this, under the lame excuse thats it's unfair on others PvP gear is the fucking easiest to get (just farm it out no drop chance or long ass legendary quest) and any advantage it gives is deserved for those who are better of play more, gives us something to work towards each season.
Besides this pvp talent system is going to suck and be way more unbalanced. Fuck am i doing raids for gear

[unbound]

Geared PvP caused 2 problems:

1) It largely killed casual PvP, and world PvP...which is really not a good thing for an MMORPG. The good PvP player with no PvP gear is easily killed by a poor PvP player fully PvP geared, so world PvP stopped working as a result (flying didn't help either). Casual PvP started going away for similar reasons...playing in a BG with little to no PvP gear against fully geared PvP players just isn't fun (I've seen 2 and sometimes 3 PvE players unable to take down a fully PvP geared healer).

2) Joining PvP late in an expansion is more painful than it should be. Yes, you can grind gear to catch up, but that is only interesting to the most dedicated and sadistic PvPers.


These are big deterrents to those that want to play PvP casually and those that would like to see world PvP again. I can't imagine playing the game currently as someone new to WoW...that will not be a pretty sight.

[Deleted]

Wrong to your wrong. It's 18 abilities/talents. They aren't unlocked by rows. They are unlocked individually going down column order.

And yet a player with 0 PvP Talents only have 6 Talents less than one with all.

It doesn't matter that there are more of them, you can only pick 6. That's it.


I compare players between each other not your false asumptions.
A newly dingend 110 will be only 6 talents inferior to a gladiator player and that is by far better than it is today and and light years away from how it has been before WoD.

Personally I don't care about your irrational decisions to not bring a warrior that has not one specific pvp talent. I care about if it is fun or not in PvP as a new character. And with this way Blizzard is approaching it gets a lot better.


In highend rated pvp content it might make a difference if one player only has 3 rows of pvp talents or 6, but in normal BGs it doesn't.
Most people in Bgs don't even bother to use cyclone as a druid, so it doesn't matter if they are able to skill it or not.

And for high end rated PvP: There will be no difference from today.
Even today you won't bring a player who is not fully conquest geared, so in Legion you will do the same stupid thing but just say you won't bring one with full talents.

So for your personal feeling of elitism everything will be as it has been but for everyone else it will be more fun and much easier to access pvp an being competetive by doing so.

No talent currently is powerful enough to gurantee a victory over someone else in pvp. Not a single one.
They are useful, especially in team fights and strong, but you will be perfectly fine without them in your daily random BGs.
This could not be said today or in MoP when you entered a BG with blue questing gear where the gear difference will guarentee a victory to the enemy.

[Kagthul]

It's amusing that you probably really believe this.

Because its true?

Go look at the PvP talent trees. The ones you unlock at higher Honor levels are amazenuts. And theyve confirmed itll take quite a while to max out your honor level.

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For me I've always wanted to try other classes I haven't played much before, but I don't feel like going through the whole getting curbstomped until I get all those alts geared up, so I've always just ended up playing my one main.

This wont change at all, since youll have to level their Honor instead.

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cause higher rated players will have better gear on top of being better skilled even if just 2% better stat.

Its also a lot more like 10% for the first season (1%/10 iLevels over 800; Mythic quality gear is just shy of iLevel 900)

[Mafic]

Geared PvP caused 2 problems:

1) It largely killed casual PvP, and world PvP...which is really not a good thing for an MMORPG. The good PvP player with no PvP gear is easily killed by a poor PvP player fully PvP geared, so world PvP stopped working as a result (flying didn't help either). Casual PvP started going away for similar reasons...playing in a BG with little to no PvP gear against fully geared PvP players just isn't fun (I've seen 2 and sometimes 3 PvE players unable to take down a fully PvP geared healer).

2) Joining PvP late in an expansion is more painful than it should be. Yes, you can grind gear to catch up, but that is only interesting to the most dedicated and sadistic PvPers.


These are big deterrents to those that want to play PvP casually and those that would like to see world PvP again. I can't imagine playing the game currently as someone new to WoW...that will not be a pretty sight.

1. Casual PVP wasn't killed because of gear being able to be acquired via PVP It was because Blizz lets entire years pass by to balance classes/specs when the norm in the industry is once every quarter year (ever three months).

You must have a bad memory because when they removed the ability to acquire PVP weapons through PVP, the casual players stopped doing battle grounds in WotLK which caused massive queue times.

2. World PvP has been at its best when PVP gear was competitive and on par with PVE gear. Removing PVP gear makes it worse for world PVP as PVE geared players will stomp on PVP geared players. My prediction is that this will happen in Legion as well.

Everything you said is categorically wrong.

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And yet a player with 0 PvP Talents only have 6 Talents less than one with all.

This could not be said today or in MoP when you entered a BG with blue questing gear where the gear difference will guarentee a victory to the enemy.

Gear scales in instances and it is capped. What you said is categorically wrong.

[evogsr]

Snip

Those six talents, especially the ones gained much later will make a player more of a detriment than if player is on Season 3 green/blue vs Season 3 epic, as it is on live.

Here is the unintelligent equivalent of what you're saying as it equates to live: an arms warrior, as long as he's "full conquest geared" will have no problem winning or performing well, even if he doesn't have access to storm bolt, shockwave, or dragon roar.

^ Over abundantly false. Even the best of players are completely reliant on abilities that aren't baseline. Far more than they are having a maximum of 5% power difference from full conquest against someone in full aspirants. Ad nauseam every talent row until actual decisions are unlocked in the middle and right columns. It's suspect that you've even examined the talents, but almost every specs left pvp talent column are junky, when considered against the stuff in middle and right. This most definitely will have impact on everything concerning competitive pvp - which for all intents and purproses is both more populated and designed around than that of random bgs and the players that fill them.

There's a reason why people in pve questing gear can get carried up to 1500 easy, even today. Because of what you've written, what you've actually said is that it's not possible for this to happen and that it's not happening. When it most definitely is. People in shit gear have won, and do win against people who outgear them because they have all their inherent skills at their disposal, and they're effective. This has been true, literally ever since season 1 in BC in terms of arena. It's been true since the beginning of the game in terms of general pvp.

A system like this in Legion effects everyone negatively. But the people it hurts the most are the shit players. Sadly, most of which see this as a "good" thing for WoW.

Your argument essentially fell to the wayside of borderline "shit player in good gear wins a significant portion of the time". If that's the direction you want to go, you might want to opt out of these discussions because it's clear no one will take you seriously. Blizzard doesn't take you seriously, even if on the surface it appears to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

You hinted at it yourself, Blizzard only cares about competitive pvp.

[TehranSD]

that is less work for them

[Deleted]

Without any pve gear cap makes me worried the dark days might return. Pve gear BiS in pvp.

[Itisamuh]

Gear isn't the sole problem, but it's still a problem. Even if they don't fix the other issues, at least they're trying to fix this one.

[Deleted]

I always felt that every solution of pvp gear since mop (and the removal of pve trinkets and legendary weapons) worked and I never got why they had to change it that often. Legion model might work again.

I think they mostly do it to cater to the ever whiny pvp community. Nothing is ever fixed or working for them, yet they still play. I also like pvp very much and play arena from time to time (though my 3v3 rating peaked at a little bit over 2200 during cata so I cant talk with the big boys). Nowadays I mostly specc and gear around world pvp to smack some groups in tanaan or brawl in the grubashi arena, so in that case the removal of pvp gear is fine for me, plus I LOVE the pvp talents, but thats off topic

[Thrif]

I never found it hard to get a full set of PvP gear, especially in WoD where it's like 1-2 days of being in Ashran to complete. For a full set of ilvl700, that's pretty little time compared to farming Tanaan for shitty 655 etc. I would've prefered if they continued with it, since it's an easy way for me to gear my toons that mostly farms old raids.

I do like the new system though. Gives me a reason to casual pvp for cool stuff, so I doesn't have to go bonkers in RBGs or Arenas in order to get something worth it.

[Cracked]

On another thought, I question my own willingness to play PvP if there is no gear gating. I was happy to jump into arena or rated bgs for the cap once a week or play for fun once a month, but I haven't played for rating in years, so what does playing PvP give me in Legion? I suppose you can do prestige, but I have a feeling many casuals will opt out of PvP as it becomes unrewarding. Gear is the main progression path in RPGs, and Blizzard is effectively removing it from what I would say is more than important part of the game.