Why do we need Resilience and PvP Power?

[Deleted]

Please do not read only the thread title.
You can stop here if you're not compatible to long threads. Thanks.

Resilience and PvP Power aren't required, as I see it. They just need to do one thing, they need to balanace player health pool vs player damage. Both of these scale with better gear, so that the actual percental damage done to player health pool stays constant, no ones gonna get one-shot in PvP.

Example:

Tier 1 gear: Spell X does 1000 dmg to player Y. Player Y has 10,000 hitpoints. Player Y lost 10% of his health.
Tier 2 gear: Spell X does 1200 dmg to player Y. Player Y has 12,000 hitpoints. Player Y lost 10% of his health.

Damage and hitpoints scale with gear, if they scale correctly, percental damage to healthpool stays constant.
This has no PvE implications, as Mob health and damage can be adjusted freely, it gets balanced against what players currently have to offer, defensively and offensively and is very easy to do. You can prove it mathematically that you can remove resilience and compensate for it in other ways, but now without dividing things into PvP and PvE, that's the advantage!

I can see only one reason why resilience is needed: they want players to see big damage numbers on mobs in relation to their own health pool. This doesn't mean that you kill faster, it doesn't mean anything at all! In best case, it's a psychological effect only. They want you to be the dude with 400k HP that hits mobs for 100k, which have 400k HP themselves rather than being the dude with 400k HP that hits mobs for 40k HP which have 160k HP themselves (you won't understand this sentence if you're not reading it carefully). In both cases you deal 25% damage to total mob HP, so it's exactly the same, only the numbers look different. The damage the mob does to the player hasn't got to do anything with these numbers, it would be the same in both cases.

Now, hypothetically and simplified, if this change would happen instantly to the MoP situation, what would that mean? It's all only about numbers, they can be scaled up or down, it doesn't matter, what matters is their relative "size" compared to each other.

1. Player health pools go from 400k HP to 1.2M HP (compensates the removal of resilience).
2. PvP damage numbers are also 3 times higher (due to no resilience), but the percental health loss per attack is the same!
3. Mob damage must be tripled to compensate for the player HP increase. Mob health isn't changing at all, as PvE damage also didn't change.
4. Healing? I have to think about that, but probably also tripled (triple mob damage and triple PvP damage), though %-based heals stay the same.

That's the situation where there wouldn't be any need for PvP specific stats, not now and not in future tiers, BUT you have the situation described above: the subjective impression is that PvE dmg numbers are low compared to player HP, but this is a cosmetical thing only, without any other meaning.

Why am I against PvP specific stats? They divide the player base, the put barriers between players, create a bunch of specific rules that just feel artificial, and that's what they are. They prevent players from enjoying both aspects of the game for no reason. Assuming that gear acquisition is equally challenging in both PvE and PvP (ideally it should be), why shouldn't we be able to jump back and forth between PvE and PvP as we wish, after all it's a game and it should be about having fun. Item level could and should be the same in PvP and PvE, after all there wouldn't be any difference other than cosmetical between the two. It's also absurd to say that the Orc dude who chose to be a NPC city guard isn't affected by PvP power, but his brother, who chose to be an Arena hero is (to have a look at it from an inside point of view).

[Snuggli]

While I agree with nearly everything you've posted, and see why it could be a good solution to the entire problem, the underlying problem is this:

If your solution was implemented, PvP and PvE gear would have to be identical (else one is better than the other). This leads to the problem of PvP rewards being way more reliable to obtain, and the fact you would feel obliged to earn gear both from raiding and PvP to stay competitive. PvErs would end up doing PvP every week, and PvPers would end up raiding every week, just so everyone is fully geared as fast as possible and has the gear advantage over everyone else.

This then leads to the argument where people are being forced to do stuff they don't want to do.

I do think though, instead of having 2 PvP stats, they should implement a PvE stat. Something like: "Increases damage done to non-player controlled creatures and humanoids" - meaning they could be completely done with resilience.

Both PvP and PvE gear could have the same ilevel and stats, PvP gear having PvP Power, PvE gear having 'X Stat'. Both damage percentages can be changed whenever they want without affecting the other. Job done.

[Deleted]

@Snuggli

Yes, PvP and PvE gear must be identical, I mentioned that, also that getting the gear must be equally challenging.

I understand what you say, but the underlying problem would only happen if there are different weekly caps for PvE and PvP (by having specific currencies). With the items being the same, there also would be only one cap and only one currency type (e.g. valor + justice), which can be filled with 100% PvE action, or 100% PvP action, or 50/50 or any other ratio. The sum of the time invested is 100%. The drops that happen in PvE must be handled somehow in this equation, as they are unreliable. No one should be forced to play the part of the game he doesn't like, true.

So you have ONE bar you can fill each week, by PvP and/or PvE. The bar is higher according to your skill (heroics, high rated arena etc.). That's equivalent to the weekly gear players can obtain.

Apart from this, the solution you proposed with the "increased damage done to mobs" would also solve the problem, yes. That would be on both items, PvP and PvE ones. Result is the elimination of the barrier between PvP and PvE.

I at least do not want this barrier and I don't think it is good for the overall gaming experience to intentionally exclude players from content by artificial methods if they don't double their time investment.

[Flaim]

pvp stats are there to prevent usage of either gear in the other aspect of the game.
i'd prefer your solution as i'm thinking the exact same way, but then you'd have the occasional pve epic/legendary that every pvper requires to have to be competitive in mid to high ratings. vice versa every pveer would require to run pvp to have a slight edge in the early stages of a content patch.

i'd really love to have just one equip set for everything, but that's impossible with blizzards game design of retardedly powerful items through the means of pve, while having nothing equivalent in pvp, because of it being then way too easily acquireable so again every pve'er would have to get it.
the only thing that stopped this trend was the implementation of pvp power.

[Carrera]

Even if they were to implement something like "Increases damage done to non-player controlled creatures and humanoids", they would still have to change the way to get gear, since HC gear from HC bosses would most likely be better then pvp gear. But as you said, if they make the gear you get form pvp to good then pve's would have to pvp to keep up on gear. And then again we have the "people being forced into something they don't want to do"

Right now I can't see a fix that would solve everything, but I guess Blizzard is working on it.

[Bobzor]

@Snuggli


So you have ONE bar you can fill each week, by PvP and/or PvE. The bar is higher according to your skill (heroics, high rated arena etc.). That's equivalent to the weekly gear players can obtain.
.

But what if it's easier to get a higher cap in RBG than it is from raiding? It's not possible to balance this. Some people would always feel obligated to do something they aren't interested in.

[PrairieChicken]

Because PVPers will be pissed that they have to raid to get gear, and PVEers will be pissed that they have to PVP to get gear

---------- Post added 2013-03-28 at 09:58 AM ----------

I understand what you say, but the underlying problem would only happen if there are different weekly caps for PvE and PvP (by having specific currencies). With the items being the same, there also would be only one cap and only one currency type (e.g. valor + justice), which can be filled with 100% PvE action, or 100% PvP action, or 50/50 or any other ratio. The sum of the time invested is 100%. The drops that happen in PvE must be handled somehow in this equation, as they are unreliable. No one should be forced to play the part of the game he doesn't like, true.

So you have ONE bar you can fill each week, by PvP and/or PvE. The bar is higher according to your skill (heroics, high rated arena etc.). That's equivalent to the weekly gear players can obtain.

It won't really work, since PVP and PVE gear acquisition is vastly different.

PVE gear is gated through difficulty, while PVP gear is gated mostly through time. Aren't really comparable. If you can get heroic raid gear from PVP then there would be hordes of wintrading happening. Pretty impossible to balance scripted fight versus player

[Deleted]

Do you want to go raiding for the extra gear? Because I sure as hell don't!