Dueling Item Level Sync

[Koltik]

Technically you are not PvPing in that screenshot, you're PvEing. Hopefully SE actually accounted for what you're showing in that screenshot, or they'll just be that much more of a joke.

[Februs]

Yup. I went there last night to check it out as well lol. I really hope that SE realizes that PvP status durations are inaccurate within WD pier and makes adjustments, because this would be terribly misleading for new people.

[SuperZay]

I guess they don't want to punish players for investing time to work on a better gear and feel like these efforts should be rewarded. However with current weekly lockout system it's impossible to gear all your jobs equally high so you'll be forced to stick with the best geared job for duels.

[Enlial]

I can see naked dueling becoming a thing

or 180 pvp gear only, but thats less funny to think about

[Myon88]

I think there's value in making the dueling area an ilvl synced zone, if only to maintain consistency between it and existing instanced PvP areas. Dueling is just a fun thing to do on the side after all, so another benefit would be being able to test things out in the same stat and gear environment you would be in the instanced modes.

I'm not sure how easy or hard it would be to do behind the scenes, but you could
1. Sync ilvls to 150 in the entire Wolves' Den zone,
2. Sync ilvls to 150 when crossing the line into the PvP area, or
3. Make it an option in the submenu when requesting a duel with a player, and syncing would occur at the end of the countdown.

It's not like 1v1 is a huge balance priority otherwise - and anyway I don't see any huge differences in how gameplay would play out at i150 vs i245, syncing dueling to i150 would have pure advantages in utility.

Obviously I have more stats at i245, but so does my opponent; if I can gib people in 3 GCDs in instanced PvP at i150, I don't see how that would play out any differently at i245. If anything, kills in a synced i150 environment will come faster because I have the advantage of using my specialty crit/det set there - while in a non-synced environment I have to put up with whatever acc or skillspeed is on my gear.

[Gumbercules]

leave it unsync'd imo, the moment they sync it ppl will start to ask for 1v1 "balance" (quick tip: it doesn't exist unless your playing something like tekken.....sometimes :P) Saw WoW get gutted from their Devs trying to balance said game around their 1v1 and 2v2 scene don't wanna see that again. To me seems duels are namely there for some extra pvp fun and pastime, hence its lack of any actual competitive rewards. (on this note, never make pvp competitive content with less than the 4v4 formula SE!, hell even the unrestricted by class thing makes me think its a bad idea)

[Myon88]

I don't see how there will be any difference between a synced and unsycned environment in practice. You hit like a truck in i245, but your opponent has i245 HP as well, and vice versa. I think they will play out exactly the same, with very minor differences in practice.

If anything, an unsynced environment is likely to cause more complaints, because a fresh 60 in i195 dungeon gear is going to get destroyed by a i245 person and forget that their gear is at fault. At least with a sync, the gear ceiling is very low so time-to-kill metrics will be standardized for most players.

That said, I also wouldn't be too worried about them caving to complaints and diverting resources to 1v1 balance (which I agree doesn't matter very much). Just look at PotD, it can be entered solo but they have gone on record to say deal with it if your class isn't as good as others for soloing. A WAR, SCH, or SMN have a much easier time soloing things than most of the pure dps classes for instance, but you don't see them wasting energy trying to fix that.

[Koltik]

I don't see how there will be any difference between a synced and unsycned environment in practice. You hit like a truck in i245, but your opponent has i245 HP as well, and vice versa. I think they will play out exactly the same, with very minor differences in practice.

If anything, an unsynced environment is likely to cause more complaints, because a fresh 60 in i195 dungeon gear is going to get destroyed by a i245 person and forget that their gear is at fault. At least with a sync, the gear ceiling is very low so time-to-kill metrics will be standardized for most players.

Except for the fact that most players who are heavy PvPers do not raid and do not even have access to i245 gear. If they do not sync then they need to add i245 gear to PvP vendors, and all that would do is throw off PvE balance. 1v1 balance will already be bad enough, no need to throw huge iLvl differences into the mix to throw it off even more.

[Myon88]

So, all the more reason to have an ilvl sync, which I am in favour of too.

That said, I don't see why they would need to add i245 gear to PvP vendors in the event that it isn't synced though. Dueling is consensual so you can just reject any requests from PvE geared people if you feel it's unfair, it's not like there are points to earn or scores to record.

[Enlial]

Technically you are not PvPing in that screenshot, you're PvEing. Hopefully SE actually accounted for what you're showing in that screenshot, or they'll just be that much more of a joke.

I dont think it's that. Wolves den pier, as far as I can tell, was intended to be a "pvp area." And you could say the same thing about the ice in fields of glory. In fact, I'm certain the training dummies and the icebound tomeliths are actually cousins ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The range penalty for bards/machinists is reflected by the training dummies, so I dont think its a technical limitation, either. My guess would be that its just an oversight.