Why does gear still affect competitive pvp?

[Thrif]

Welcome to MMORPG where character progression is a thing.
Go play CS or something if you dont like mmos

Thank you, couldn't agree more.

There are tons of highly balanced PvP focused games for people to play if they're more interested in that than in playing an mmorpg. Mmorpgs are not designed to be competitive games in the first place, and they shouldn't be balanced around that.

[shadycharacter1]

because that way you're investing more time and thus they can show a slight increase in their MAU for their shareholders. There's nothing else to it.

[Demetrion]

Because it's an RPG, and RPGs include character/Gear progression. If you want a perfectly balanced playing field, you should find another game.

This exactly. Templates removed character progression.

Better question would be: why PVE gear is better than PVP gear? That is something they should address.

[Schmilblick]

Gear shouldn't affect pvp but a lot of people just like to go into pvp only when they outgear their opponents.

Sadly, there are a lot of them, those lows :/

[Sosua]

Because PvP is about skill, not about killing scripted mobs.

Right, Non-PvP is scripted, therefore you should know EXACTLY what the game is going to do, and therefore require lower gear with that knowledge, PvP doesnt work like that at all... Gear matters for World questing/Rares, Dungeons, Mythics, and Raids, but they should change the entire mechanics of the game, because you believe PvP should be different? Good luck with that.

[Neverafter]

Maybe they should slop together some sort of Battle Royale type of thing where everyone starts at different spots around a map with the same cloth gear (mages, warriors, everyone) and there is gear littered around the map. I don't pvp or play Fortnite or any of that other stuff, but that kinda looks like what goes on there. Throw in some of the random buffs and such from Island Expeditions to make everyone less reliant on healers. Like I said, its slopped together, but it might be fun.

[Schmilblick]

Right, Non-PvP is scripted, therefore you should know EXACTLY what the game is going to do, and therefore require lower gear with that knowledge, PvP doesnt work like that at all... Gear matters for World questing/Rares, Dungeons, Mythics, and Raids, but they should change the entire mechanics of the game, because you believe PvP should be different? Good luck with that.

what the FUCK are talking about ? I don't give a shit about what hey can do about PvE, I just want PvP to be based on skill, not on gear, like in FF14.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Because its an MMORPG with many different pathways to enjoy the game.
That's all that really needs to be said.

If you think gear shouldn't affect pvp, it shouldn't matter in any competitive pathway then, and you quickly see how that gets absurd.

[Elias01]

Play other games then? There is plenty of pvp compettive games all around. MMORPGs are really not compettive games atlest not on esport level. So no play other game.

[Big Thanks]

Because it's an RPG, and RPGs include character/Gear progression. If you want a perfectly balanced playing field, you should find another game.

Agreed

Im a casual so i always only have the "poor mans" item level...and i dont mind.
Gladly the gap of item level is now lower due to benthic gear and whatnot.

[Biomega]

Same reason PvP affects competitive PvE: Blizzard WANTS the two to intersect because it creates more content for the average player. They've explicitly stated that they want people to easily switch between PvP and PvE and for both to matter - having overlaps in progression is the only real way to achieve/motivate that.

Yes it annoys the minority of strongly PvP- or PvE-focused players, but that's not their main concern; they are looking to cater to the majority of "casual" dabblers who do both.

[jiih]

because its a mmorpg? Actually gear should matter much more than it does currently.

only bad people cry about gear difference and some irl losers who earn their money with boosting/coaching and have 50alts to play.

i dont know one single person even if they are playing on rival rating that think current system is better than wotlk where you could have a nice mix of pve/pvp and min/max on your own.

[Gatto]

Because on the one hand, blizzard pretends that also pvp players farm.
On the other hand, because casuals/pvers/etc pretend to have advantages due to their equipment.

Playing because you have fun, without reward, is not mainstream anymore.

[Schmilblick]

Playing because you have fun, without reward, is not mainstream anymore.

You reward is beating people cause you are skilled, not because you are geared.

[docterfreeze]

If gear matters, there should be PvP vendors and PvP-only stats. If gear doesn't matter, the game feels like shit because the devs decide your build. However, we haven't seen what happens when you remove the importance of gear in a PvP environment with skill-based classes. The only expansion where the importance of gear was reduced was legion, and everyone knows legion classes were far from high skill.

[Sanguinerd]

Maybe competitive pvp just needs to stop being a thing and Blizzard should feel free to end it already. There are other games where everyone is equal and everything gets reset every new match and a MMO is not a place for such modes imo.

Character progression and gear should matter, a big part of the game is getting better gear and becoming stronger.

Competitive PvP is a drag on WoW and it has been ever since Blizzard started making it part of their eSports line-up.

[Accendor]

If people want a power fantasy just leave it in battlegrounds; does anyone else think its the dumbest f4cking idea in existence having item level affect competitive PvP?

No, not at all. When gear did kot matter in legion everybody stopped doing PVP.
Also: Why should I play when I can not progress my character?
WoW is the wrong kind of game if you dont want gear to matter. There is Dota, LoL, Apex, Fortnite etc there for you

[Arainie]

because that way you're investing more time and thus they can show a slight increase in their MAU for their shareholders. There's nothing else to it.

This is so ridiculously dumb. Character growth is the bread and butter of any rpg/mmorpg. PvP, M+ and raids are the primary end-game branches and if you remove character growth (time investment as currency) you kind of break the whole rpg design philosophy and I'd say you're not really in the right genre anymore.

[FAILoZOFF]

i dont know one single person even if they are playing on rival rating that think current system is better than wotlk where you could have a nice mix of pve/pvp and min/max on your own.

Lets pretend that WotLK PvP wasn't a complete joke, mainly THANKS to all the PvE crap.

However, we haven't seen what happens when you remove the importance of gear in a PvP environment with skill-based classes. The only expansion where the importance of gear was reduced was legion, and everyone knows legion classes were far from high skill.

WoD reduced meaning of gear even more than Legion did. I liked that expansion's PvP faaar better than Legion.

[CrawlFromThePit]

If people want a power fantasy just leave it in battlegrounds; does anyone else think its the dumbest f4cking idea in existence having item level affect competitive PvP?

It objectively should not. Unfortunately we deal with people who have bad judgment.

On top of that, PvP by itself is so not fun because people are allowed to stop your game from working for several seconds straight, Blizzard feel the need to attract people with shinies otherwise they wouldn't play that shit content.