Every PVP MMO normalizes gear in PVP

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

That isn't how a balanced skill based competitive PVP environment works. That's how a unbalanced gear based PVP environment works.

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People looking for "balanced skill based competitive PVP environment" in MMOs just make me laugh. Regardless of Gear the Classes itself are never balanced. Go play your FPS/Mobas or something for that.

Gear is the best Motivation to keep People playing PvP. You should get something for your work. Lets normalize Gear in PvE! Nobody wants to grind Gear, so everyone is happy... NOT.

And most times its Skill>Gear, but its easier to blame the Gear.Nobody outgears you at the moment stage of Wolves Den. Crafting ilvl 55 Gear is equal to ilvl90 Pve Gear.
An Example from my old Wow Arena Times.
With Rating 2000 you were able to buy Shoulder. Everyone is able to see that you are good in PvP,not many people were able to reach them. But why? Not because Gear is unbalanced
1) Most People were to lazy to work so much for "just" Shoulders.
2) You were fighting People with nearly equaly Gear, so Tactic/Skill > Gear.

Its just easier to blame the Gear for it.... or the Teammates.
DEAL WITH IT

The matches would be a lot more balanced/fair if parties of 3 aren't allowed to queue at all for pvp. Parties of 2 and 4 would be forced to queue up in the premade grouping while the solo queues would be the only ones allowed into the non-premade grouping.

PVP has to be it own or its never going to work.

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Originally Posted by Illya

-snip for char limit-

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Actually, all cloth classes got an endurance buff in pvp. Priests had lowest endurance, so they got around a 40% buff, mystics 32%, and sorcs 25-ish%. Priests also still got hit harder than any other class, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make? Geared(good) players still knew what to do to try and lock me down and combo me out. I think I had one piece of gear with reflect on it? And it was t12 from FoK. They also removed stacking of reflect on gear. Also, I said I solo queued, Sometimes duo with an archer. I had 0 Lancer friends, no one liked playing them for some reason and I certainly wasn't going to trust a pug lancer to do anything for me lol

However, I agree that Tera had possibly the worst balanced pvp otherwise. As I mentioned for 3s, which was supposed to be the "balanced" pvp, it was just running around in circles waiting for cooldowns so a dps could try and one-combo out someone. After the healing nerf, it was even harder to compensate for how much damage people were taking.

Nomalized BGs were pretty awful since they showed the glaring imbalance between the damage taken and the healing output. It was like "sorcs and archers playtime"

Edit: ya having to pve for the best pvp gear was pretty dumb. best pvp gear should come from pvp, and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by zdub303

Not to mention all the incredibly overpowered pvp skills locked behind rank walls.

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I just really don't understand their logic behind this. You shouldn't have to suffer through imbalanced play just to gain access to necessary skills.

PvP in its current state needs a LOT of balance changes.

Personally, I feel that if you are against gear normalization in PvP then you are probably someone that doubts they could win without a gear advantage.

And just to make it clear, in PvP I usually outgear my opponents.

To be fair I kinda hated the normalizing in GW2. It gave me 0 incentive to play PvE really (seeing as the pve in that game was pretty poopoo IMO). There's still PvP only gear and I'm pretty sure most of it is BiS compared to PvE gear. Also, it's not like top tier PvE gear is random. I'm not gonna pull a .05% drop and say herp derp time to tear it up in PvP and go pro.

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Originally Posted by Skyhound

By now, I must be known as the EVE fanboy because of how much I mention them; but it's just such a great example. That game's greatest selling points are it's economy and it's PvP.

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EVE works because its open world pvp with no player limit. You know what else CCP put out with gear progression and 16v16 pvp? Dust 514, the most imbalanced piece of garbage FPS game ever made. Guess what they have been doing for the last 8 months after a horrible reception of the game at release? They are normalizing their gear progression to be very small jumps between tiers after people in high level gear just roflstomped every new person who tried the game. I'm terrible at FPS games and I was at a 4.0 K/D... I knew people with 16-20 K/Ds, and 8 was the minimum before you were considered relevant. Yeah, gear progression doesn't work, it's just better masked by having more and more players. Also, hasn't eve gone through major changes nerfing all of the battlecruisers and capitals ships and all that specifically to make it less gear progression? They been normalizing their gear progression for years, I think they called it Tiericide.

I would actually be more fine with with gear progression if this game had a ladder system and 16v16 pvp. But 4v4 and huge power differentials between tiers is going to kill the pvp in this game. Not today obviously, everyone is still having fun... But in 3-4 months when 75% of players are i70 or i90 with around 75% more damage and damage reduction vs a new player? It's gonna end up like that WoW arena example... Each month less and less people will play as no one will bother grinding through so much power differential to get i90 gear. It would be acceptable if they increased the marks you gained to like 1000 per win and 750 per loss. Then you could justify pvp gear in its current state maybe.

To the people saying pvp is pointless without gear progression... Maybe pvp isn't actually for you then. There are a lot of ways to incentivize pvp without gear progression. If you aren't interested in pvp without gear progression, you likely aren't that interested in pvp in the first place. And you're just gonna quit when you've got you're full set of shiny gear, unless all you really playing for is to roflstomp newbies in your i90.

i'd say normalize PvE gear in PvP!

but thats partially done with the "Morale" stat

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Morale
All PvP-related gear will include the morale parameter. In level 50 arena matches, the morale parameter will affect the amount of damage taken from other players, effectively replacing physical and magical defense.

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We should just fight everything naked in this game and have no gear progression zomg lazy ppl

I like what GW and GW2 did for PvP. The normalization of gear meant skill>gear. Yes, your "progression" was for looks and rank emotes, but people DO play towards that. There are also tournaments etc. It meant that you spent more time coming up with tactics because the field was more level.

Those arguing for PvP with gear imbalances, I can see the draw to purchase that leeter gear, but your stomping of a foe with lesser gear seems a little less praiseworthy.
Personally, I'd feel much more accomplished knowing that my team beat an equally geared team due to skill than I would if my team were, say all iLvl 90 and going against ilvl 55 (that may just be me, iunno). SE could put stuff in place to make sure that, when pitted, teams are matched based on ilvl, but then why not just normalize gear from the get go?

agree with above zdub: if you think PvP without progression is pointless, then you're not really looking for balanced, fair PvP. I get a sense that it's just a matter of stomping on those with lesser gear..

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

No one likes being outgeared in structured PVP and losing due to someone doing 30% more damage than you anymore, keep that in world PVP and out of structured PVP like the only PVP we currently have.

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Please allow me to use the sentence I quoted from your post, as this is were I believe you are the most wrong. Let's have a look at the opposite statement:
"Everyone likes being outgeared in structured PVP and winning due to be able to do 30% more damage than the opponents." Since this is reasoning with absolute, it is therefore wrong, but I'm betting it's a lot closer to reality than your statement.

This game is a MMORPG. By definition, you are meant to level up, get stronger, face stronger foes and slaughter countless weaker opponents than yourself. This is the very core of a RPG and what RPG players expects from a RPG game. Being a MMO just means that a lot of other players are progressing in the same world as yourself. Whether you want to stand at the top of these players or not is irrelevant. You want to get stronger and the game will comply to your needs to do so.

I believe that true display of skills is only possible when the odds are stacked against you. If you are absolutely equal to your opponent stat-wise, then you must take into account lag, game bugs, class inequalities, computer power, keyboard speed, random number generator for damage... Both of you may press on your respective keyboard/controller the same key at the exact same time, but end up with one character striking first for maximal critical hit damage, while the other goes second with minimal damage. There is no skill in that. Maybe luck at most. Therefore, your victories might all be considered to be luck-related.

On the other hand, go against a superior force, significantly better geared, while being under-geared and manage to steal the victory, there can't be luck in that. The opponent outgearing you will have an absolute damage output much higher than you and a damage input much lower than you. Winner this battle fairly is therefore only explained by pure skill. The opponent can of course find excuses, but the fact remains that you should have lost and you won. Problem is, not many players are actually skilled or want to spend enough time to reach that level. Therefore, they go for the gear advantage. If they can endure losing long enough, they will get better gear and start winning against weaker opponents.

This is RPG logic. Cover your weaknesses with companions and/or powerful gear and save/conquer the world. Standing on the top doesn't mean to have the best skills, it means a combination of dedication, skill, experience, training and gear to back you up. Again, RPG logic. If it was fair, than young heroes would never thwart a villain's masterplan that took years of efforts, training and preparation to achieve, simply by swinging around the MasterSword. We want to get the MasterSword and kick the villain's ***, in a timely fashion.

Winning is winning and not everyone thinks that a victory is only a real victory if you have out-skilled the opponent. Too easy or not, it is common knowledge that most people will enjoy the victory.

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Originally Posted by LloydShade

On the other hand, go against a superior force, significantly better geared, while being under-geared and manage to steal the victory, there can't be luck in that. The opponent outgearing you will have an absolute damage output much higher than you and a damage input much lower than you. Winner this battle fairly is therefore only explained by pure skill. The opponent can of course find excuses, but the fact remains that you should have lost and you won. Problem is, not many players are actually skilled or want to spend enough time to reach that level. Therefore, they go for the gear advantage. If they can endure losing long enough, they will get better gear and start winning against weaker opponents.

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That sounds good an all but the reality of it is that people that skilled are already geared. Those people are absolutely destroying the undergeared players and generally winning against equally geared players. On the other side, you have a large majority of 'average' players who will play for a few hours, get absolutely roflstomped due to gear disparity, and then look at the amount of grinding necessary for the necessary pvp gear and skills to even stand a chance and say "meh, pvp in this game sucks" and never play again.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

Gear progression does not belong in PVP. WOW is normalizing gear in Arenas for a reason, this is not 2004 anymore, no one likes gear progression or gear imbalances in PVP, especially arena PVP. The most successful MMO on the planet is normalizing gear in PVP, everyone else should follow suit unless they don't like money.

Gear progression should be PVE and world PVP only.

IT IS NOT FUN TO LOSE DUE TO GEAR.

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What? Even for WOW I'm sure gear progression in PVP extended way beyond 2004. Swtor had a decent gear grind for PVP and it worked fine. Also, the gear is only imbalance cuz you're gimped lol. Wait, why can't I wear my Lalafell Tunic for coil?! QQ . Besides, the delta between gears level in this game is not as drastic as some of the games out there where you get resisted on everything if the delta is too great.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

No, this isn't 2004 anymore. Gear should NEVER be the deciding factor in PVP, if it is, you need to disable PVP until it's changed.

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Your right it's not 2004 it's 2014. Are you submitting the idea that modernize PvP should hand you everything? We play this game for progression not for a quick min "equal" balance. And in-case you haven't done pvp yet, this game's is highly skilled based and situational. I like to play my drg in PvP with mix 60-70- gear and jacking up l90 players with ease.

2nd you're forgetting about the ability based on rank with another progression sink or do you want that to be handed to you? How boring would that be if everything handed to us like as you presented it. Look at Modern Warfare or other first person shooters that just hand you stuff I think that's more on the lines what you're looking for. MMO's are all about progression. Period!

HAHAHAHA....no

But seriously in a game like this and wow hell any game gear equalization is bad. When everything is equal pvp then becomes a game of who CCs better and who has more burst. All this does is make balance inequality retardedly blatant. This will bee especially true for WoW and here where everything is click and mash buttons with maybe running out of aoes. Either way it's a bad idea.

The only place equalization works are in games like TERA where everything has to be aimed or dodge because while the imbalance will be pretty obvious a truly skilled player can avoid his enemies attacks and fight back. Here and in WoW all he can do is get clicked on and slept then burst down. So yeah no

If you're so skilled then getting gear should be easy.

I'd try PvP if we had normalized gear at all levels.

I'm not into getting stomped by someone just because I didn't started farming gear since the beginning. I'm bad enough without having a gear disvantage. And I need my Lustrate...

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

IT IS NO FUN TO LOSE DUE TO GEAR

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It really doesn't seem like your losing due to gear..... Ive experienced a very skill orientated PvP in this game so far.

Also, PvP forum! :)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/1019-PvP

Yeah basically normalize gear and people won't pvp anymore

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

I'd try PvP if we had normalized gear at all levels.

I'm not into getting stomped by someone just because I didn't started farming gear since the beginning. I'm bad enough without having a gear disvantage. And I need my Lustrate...

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You can start with buying (or crafting) PvP gear

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Originally Posted by LloydShade

If you are absolutely equal to your opponent stat-wise, then you must take into account lag, game bugs, class inequalities, computer power, keyboard speed, random number generator for damage... Both of you may press on your respective keyboard/controller the same key at the exact same time, but end up with one character striking first for maximal critical hit damage, while the other goes second with minimal damage.

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Don't you still "take into account lag, game bugs, class inequalities, computer power, keyboard speed, random number generator for damage"? It's not like this disappears without gear normalization..

Any serious PvPer understands that its preferable to have an equalizer mechanic of some sort, instead of what is essentially Gear vs Gear. Having said this, its foolish to expect that sort of thing in this game, mostly because this isn't serious PvP. XIV PvP is for fun, at least for now. Deal with it or play another game for your PvP fix /shrug

"We need pvp because pve is to easy and pvp is skill based"

"Well gear is a major deciding factor in pvp... often greatly reducing the effect of skill"

"We need pvp gear because people wont pvp without it."

You guys are so fun... You pvpers really are the best aren't you...

what's the point of PvPing if gears are normalized and there is no ladder?

Everybody likes / wants it for different reasons.

You can buy a full set of starting pvp gear for cheap, it's enough to give you a fair chance. There's no excuse not to have any, it's very accessible. It's not like people already have full sets of the reward gear or anything. I've been playing constantly since the night after the patch came out and I haven't even gotten my second piece yet. there is no major gear advantage issue right now.

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Originally Posted by ROOTFayth

what's the point of PvPing if gears are normalized and there is no ladder?

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this question anticipates a subjective answer.
One could just as easily ask: what's the point of PvPing if there is no gear normalization?

People will PvP for different reasons. GW 1 and GW 2 seem to have invested quite a bit of money thinking that gear normalization was a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Daenerys_Sedai

this question anticipates a subjective answer.
One could just as easily ask: what's the point of PvPing if there is no gear normalization?

People will PvP for different reasons. GW 1 and GW 2 seem to have invested quite a bit of money thinking that gear normalization was a good thing.

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GW 1 and GW 2 seem to have also made quite a bit of money thinking that gear normalization was a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Daenerys_Sedai

this question anticipates a subjective answer.
One could just as easily ask: what's the point of PvPing if there is no gear normalization?

People will PvP for different reasons. GW 1 and GW 2 seem to have invested quite a bit of money thinking that gear normalization was a good thing.

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On the surface it seems like a good thing because it might make things a little more fair for certain people, but in the long run it's damaging because you completely lose the buzz of being rewarded for your accomplishments, thus decreasing the longevity of the content for some people.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

On the surface it seems like a good thing because it might make things a little more fair for certain people, but in the long run it's damaging because you completely lose the buzz of being rewarded for your accomplishments.

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I agree with this, right now you really have no reason to be complaining about the disparity of gear since there currently isn't one. Start with hq crafted gear and put in the work to get the better stuff now before there is a huge disparity. Right now people are not geared enough for this to be a viable issue in my opinion. I think without the gear involved there would be a lot less people doing pvp in this game and I believe effort should be rewarded.

Gear advantages in an instanced set up fight with even numbers per side is counter productive.

It's kind of sad to watch each side launch hyperbole.

Gear balancing isn't that bad and it'd be pretty easy to do, the game already devalues gear when you level sync, so it's possible to devalue to a certain item level. It really would be an easy fix. It's been done in enough other games (like vanity slots) to insist on some chilling effect.

I don't really know that forcing people through a PVE grind to have the best PVP gear is necessarily hardcore or meaningful. Also I'm pretty sure PVE Progression won't be "killed" because that gear doesn't give you an edge in PVP. At a glance it's sort of unfair to people who don't like PVE content as much as they like PVP. I think the go play something else argument here is especially pathetic, since if this was implemented with some gear scaling you'd be seeing it thrown in the opposite direction just as quick.

I did sort of overlook the devaluing of PVP gear earned form the PVP but if most PVE stuff is going to be better it's already pretty devalued as is, isn't it?

To address the good doctor above, I understand that it may not be a current issue, but it is an inevitable one simply due to how the system is currently set up.

Anyway, it sounds like you guys may be looking for something to keep you interested and continue playing. If there were other types of rewards that didn't affect combat, then would you be agreeable to gear normalization? If the answer is 'no,' and that you want to have higher level gear to give you the ability to match up against an undergeared person, then I guess I can see how the stomping appeals to some. There are other games that have this PvP system and many people find it rewarding and enjoyable. It's not for me. I just think, that as one who wants to play for skill, you don't want to have field and respond to criticisms like: "you guys won because you outgeared the other team." You remove that criticism with gear normalization. Again, though, some people like this aspect of PvP--it's just not for me.

To say that you NEED gear progression to keep people interested in PvP, is a little far stretched and that maybe, you're not really looking for a real PvP experience. Take the Fighting Game Community (holla SRK!), Super Street Fighter II Turbo is STILL being played at international competitions. From a system point of view, your Sagat has the same chance of winning as John Choi's Sagat. It's not like Choiboy's Sagat (system-wise) is better than yours because he's been playing longer and has been able to gear it up. Nope. it's going to be the skill he brings to the table. How LESS EPIC would the Daigo-Wong EVO 2004 SF 3rd Strike moment be, if Daigo's Ken had parry+100 gear on?

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Originally Posted by Daenerys_Sedai

How LESS EPIC would the Daigo-Wong EVO 2004 SF 3rd Strike moment be, if Daigo's Ken had parry+100 gear on?

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For anyone that doesn't know what Daenerys is talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeM0rH_4ung

Go spend 30k on lvl 55 pvp gear. It is at least on par with lvl 90 pve gear for pvp.

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Originally Posted by Daenerys_Sedai

this question anticipates a subjective answer.
One could just as easily ask: what's the point of PvPing if there is no gear normalization?

People will PvP for different reasons. GW 1 and GW 2 seem to have invested quite a bit of money thinking that gear normalization was a good thing.

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obviously because you strive to get better gears

also PvP where gears are normalized without a ladder seems absolutely pointless

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Originally Posted by ROOTFayth

obviously because you strive to get better gears

also PvP where gears are normalized without a ladder seems absolutely pointless

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I think you missed the point of my post you quoted..

anyway, I've said my piece. It's all circles from here on out anyway.

I agree with both sides of this argument; the few PVP matches I've done the other team vastly "out geared" any duty team with pieces of PVP gear (morale) and we were trounced. I wouldn't want to take the sense of achievement away either - but I think that sense of achievement should come from well fought matches...


It's frustrating watching everyone else die on your team; and it's depressing to see you out DPS'd your entire team. At one point the matches were so imbalanced I ended up just /sitting and let them wail on my face rather than try and run because everyone else had already got wrecked at an alarming rate.

I'm not a huge PVP enthusiast anymore but I was looking forward to it - but I missed out on day one. Already people have more skills and gear than I can feasibly overcome with skill - so I've decided to step back and only play when pre-made groups of friends want to play. Doing the lower level cap and getting the crafted gear might alleviate some of this but it's just surprising how quickly it became lopsided (in some cases).

Sense of progression and "winning" is important - but having fun is key. If PVP is blindingly frustrating with a steep entry curve it dies out.

Want fair PVP, go play something else. You can hardly say this game is PVP oriented because it has one arena... Il90 Gear should allow you to beat the crap out of someone in il70. The one exception would be if someone has the pvp set's with moralre on it (thats what it's there for) they are harder to beat on.

What do you propose they do to fix this? Disable pve gear from being war in there at all?

Also, Wow.. at least when I played, did the same thing. There was PVP gear sure. But to get it you had to PVP with PVE Gear on and work your way up. And many many times a new tier set would come out, e.g. 10 and 10.5. You could have full 10.5 and go to PVP and wreck people.

+1 for the OP's view on this. The feeling about this is not as unanimous as some of you in the vertical grind bubble think. Normalizing gear in sPVP isn't a controversial idea and plenty of people prefer that because it emphasizes skill over grind. That's not to say it makes ARR's sPVP unplayable - just not as great for some.