Increase rewards for losing team

[realistic1]

Xayide more or less hit the nail on the head with her interpretation.

I too had ‘guessed’ that this was your intent but a couple of remarks you made had me hoping that I was reading your posts wrong and your point was that gear rewards are unfair due to how broken pvp is in this game rather than we should have no gear reward incentive in any pvp. I wanted to give you the benefit of doubt before responding.

PvP "Stats" serve no purpose other than skewing someone's chance at victory.

Or the cup half full viewpoint: Pvp stats serve a very distinct purpose in pvp, to benefit those that place effort into earning stats by providing a slightly higher advantage in a pvp match.

By putting these kind of stats into a progression system, especially one that depends upon winning, you do nothing but rob newer (not less skilled, but 'younger') players from being able to participate fully and equally.

Or with the cup half full viewpoint- putting these stats into a progression system, especially one that depends upon winning, furthers the spirit of competition by creating goals and incentive for players to invest time and effort into winning and achieving higher stats to better themselves so they can earn the same advantage of those they come up against that have put in time and effort to win and better gear themselves. Sort of like life- goals and hard work often equal success. Handouts and the demand to make everyone ‘equal’ regardless of effort or performance creates spoon fed zombies that expect everything giving to them someone else has without extending effort and earning it.

From a design standpoint, they serve no purpose other than putting the carrot on the stick for a PvP audience instead of a PvE.

Yes, hard work, specific goals, and achieving those goals and rewards for effort. I am all for the carrot on a stick.

It separates the playerbase instead of encouraging them to play in both areas, as some people simply do not have the time to doggedly pursue both arenas.

And this is fine as the game will mimic life a bit then as often we have to choose a path to focus on as we cannot always excel at everything there is to do. Those that want to focus on PVE will do so and those that want to focus on PVP will do so. Those that want to play a little of both will do so and very likely not be on the same gear level of those that focus primarily on one or the other but everyone has the very same choices in this game as far as what to focus on.

The appeal of PvP is the fact that you're playing against someone who is as wiley and unpredictable as you are.

This appeal is there for me every match, it only tends to fade a bit when I see a premade (gear or no gear) as they often have an advantage just due to strategic organization and the lesser chance (1 out of 4) of having an AFK player or bot.
However, this is not the only appeal. For me, the patience and effort I am placing into solo queue matches and slowly earning marks for my gear holds an appeal to continue playing. Every point I make I feel like I am actually earning something that others have the very same option to earn but instead spend their time complaining about instead of extending the effort to earn so I am slowly (very slowly) reaping benefits that those that are not extending the same effort are not achieving. While I am certainly not on the same level as those in full 70 or 90 gear right now, I will be in better gear (all by solo queue) than those complaining about pvp instead of playing pvp. I have earned this slight benefit and it feels pretty dang good.

Adding in a reward for anything other than vanity taints that system

Again, my cup is half full, I think it provides incentive and goals for achievement. I think earning gear is part of the competition and it encourages me to extend that extra effort in every match rather than just getting by or sitting on the sidelines waiting to be handed the same reward for losing as I would get for winning.

Competition thrives by giving everyone the same mechanical means and watching what they do with it.

Competition also thrives when you have incentive, goals, and rewards. Your primary argument appears to be the pvp gear advantage and that everyone should be on equal footing with pvp gear. Every one of us including you and me started with the same exact pvp gear advantage on day one of patch 2.1. My gear accumulation has been slower than someone doing premades but there is no reason I should sit back and complain or ask for handouts to equal those that geared quickly with premades as nothing was physically stopping me (or you or anyone else reading this) from making a premade and earning gear at the exact same rate- other than perhaps skill. If someone reading my post today enters their very first pvp match with 2 others on vent or TS, they would very likely have an advantage over me in a pug even with me wearing some pvp gear. This would be most certainly the case if I am grouped with an afk player, a bot, or someone that that does not know what a healer looks like or one class from another.
People view competition differently, some of us want to strive for goals and achievements even when the course before us is a tough one and some of us see a course that is tough and spend our time demanding that we not have to earn it as it is too hard and everyone should be equal.

If your argument would have focused on the fact that the win/loss ratio is so lopsided with ES allowing 3 man premades to be matched again total pugs and gear lvl 90’s being matched against lvl 55 and therefore ES needs to work on this issue as until then the win/loss lopsidedness greatly impacts gear accumulation and spirit of competition, our conversation would be going in a different direction. However, your argument is that any type of stat advantage on gear rewards for win taints the competition. While we might be closer on sides with the former, we are not with the latter.

[Alindra]

I have no problem with PVP gear, but winners be able to earn it 5 times faster than losers only increases the chances of losers staying losers and winners staying winners. Which, for the lucky few who were able to play a ton of PVP when it first came out, is arguably fair enough. But for everyone else, it is very disheartening to lose majority of their matches and be yelled at by the people on their team for not having gear/abilities and have it take so long to earn them.

Most mmo's have have PVP gear that you earn through winning. Most aren't so lopsided to let winners earn them 5 times faster. And most of those don't also have abilities that you also learn faster the more you win, that have a significant affect on gameplay. Because you need people to continue playing in order for PVP to thrive, and such disparity between winners and losers makes the losers not want to play. Thus, less people for the winners to play, and PVP eventually dies.

[Kabooa]

Cup half full snip

And none of that actually requires mechanical power progression. A progressing vanity system (Which it may not exist yet) still gives incentive to be better and be granted more rewards while having no impact on your odds of winning.

I'm not saying you're wrong. Those are valid points achieved by a simple change of attitude, but at the same time, you can maintain this appeal without power progression. Power progression by its nature means those on the bottom have a lower chance of winning than those at the top. It does nothing but create this sort of hazing period before you're actually allowed to compete on even grounds.

[realistic1]

Power progression by its nature means those on the bottom have a lower chance of winning than those at the top.

But if you are equating gear to power (which you are) and we ALL started with the very same pvp gear on day one of 2.1, perhaps the issue is not the gear reward but the lopsided win/loss ratio which I have mentioned all along is the problem- not the gear reward.

If on day one of patch 2.1, we all started out with the very same pvp gear and the only availability was solo queue for everyone with no ability to make teams, would you still see an issue with gear rewards?

If the answer is yes, I cannot continue to beat my head against the wall as this is the soccer mom mentality I referenced in another post and despise. (he/she cannot play as much so give it to them, he/she has no skill so give it to them, he/she wants to pve not pvp so give it to them, he/she does not want to extend the effort so give it to them...)

[Kabooa]

You refer to this 'soccer mom' mentality when it's simply good competitive sense.

Which is odd. It seems like this "soccer mom" mentality extends to almost every serious competitive scene of any sport, that prevents someone having an uneven playing field outside of their own individual capability and the synergy of the team they're on. Do you hate that as well? Do you hate that they insist that the only factors between victory and defeat should come from playing ability?

Could you honestly say that the system would be worse if you were given your 30 action points, morale was removed from the system (And P/M Defense was used in its stead), and the only difference between you and anyone else was your own PvP capability? That it robbed you of your carrot on the stick?

If the answer is yes, I cannot continue to beat my head against the wall, as this is the typical pvper mentality. (He/she cannot stand that those who play less than them have the same chance of winning on individual ability alone, he/she has just as much skill as me but less Prestige Rank, he/she doesn't need nearly as much effort as I do to win...)

(You might realize how ridiculous you sound after that.)

[realistic1]

Perhaps you missed the only question posed to you in my last reply:

If on day one of patch 2.1, we all started out with the very same pvp gear and the only availability was solo queue for everyone with no ability to make teams, would you still see an issue with gear rewards?

[realistic1]

You refer to this 'soccer mom' mentality when it's simply good competitive sense.

Uh, no it is not.

My definition of soccer mom as previously posted: A soccer mom demands there will be no keeping score in the games so everyone is a winner and gets a trophy because her little Johnny has been fed with silver spoon and has no desire to place any effort into anything his entire lifetime and it would be unfair for him not to win automatically just for showing up.

It seems like this "soccer mom" mentality extends to almost every serious competitive scene of any sport, that prevents someone having an uneven playing field outside of their own individual capability and the synergy of the team they're on.

As previously discussed; we ALL had that level playing field as far as your only complaint (pvp gear rewards) on day one with the very same game mechanics at our disposal to earn it.

Could you honestly say that the system would be worse if you were given your 30 action points, morale was removed from the system (And P/M Defense was used in its stead), and the only difference between you and anyone else was your own PvP capability?

Unlike you, I will answer your question-Yes, especially if this was done to satisfy whiners that simply want everything given to them. I would prefer that FF does not turn into the mess Wow did when they started catering to the 12 year old spoon fed soccer babies that cried if something was a bit hard or they were not given what the next player had without exerting effort to earn it. I think separating pve from pvp is great and I think morale helps with this. I also think rewarding those for work and effort is a great thing in competition. In fact, this fits the Webster definition of competition. Remove incentives like gear for pvp and you end up with a system full of little johnny’s all running around exerting little effort spending more time tossing flowers in the air and calling for world peace than doing pvp.

As stated previously, all along you have equated the unfairness and the unlevel field as gear and yet as I have pointed out, we ALL started with the same exact gear on day one of 2.1 and ALL had the same mechanics at our disposal (other than individual skill) to earn the same gear going forward. My stance is that gear rewards are not the issue, it is the lopsided win/loss ratio resulting from a flawed match system that needs to be looked into not removing gear rewards for winning.

As also previously stated, if you would not have the soccer mom mentality that gear rewards are unfair just because some might earn them at a higher rate due to more effort and had instead suggested that pvp is broke and results in an unfair win/loss ratio that harms the spirit of competition and needs to be changed, we would not be having this discussion.

I cannot continue to beat my head against the wall, as this is the typical pvper mentality

Hmmmm so you are a pve person, beginning to make sense now.

(He/she cannot stand that those who play less than them have the same chance of winning on individual ability alone

He/she started with the same gear as I did on day one of pvp. If he/she extended the same effort I have, there is no reason he/she would not have the same chance of winning as I do.

he/she has just as much skill as me but less Prestige Rank, he/she doesn't need nearly as much effort as I do to win...

Hmmm perhaps I am misreading. If their rank is lower why do they need less effort than I do to win? My rank is lower than most I am coming against in solo queue and I find I need to exert more effort to win. But, instead of me throwing a tantrum about those that have more gear than I do, I am out there earning it. Perhaps he/she should simply follow my lead and do the same until SE looks into changing the real issue with gear rewards: the lopsided win/loss ratio created by the flawed match up system.

I find myself repeating the same thing over and over without you addressing any point I have made (or even answering the one question I asked) so I am not sure it makes sense to continue this. I think any reply you provide to this post can be addressed by rereading this post and my past several posts. To sum up:

Gear rewards are not the issue as we all started out with the exact same gear and game mechanics to achieve gear. The issue is the lopsided win/loss ratio that resulted from a flawed match system.

If you want to discuss how unlevel the playing field is right now and how it will remain unlevel even if the match system is fixed due to those premades that quickly geared against solo queues, I would be happy to have that discussion. We could discuss the potential of matches based on premades vs premades or average item lvl ect. I might even be willing to entertain the idea of offsetting the gear advantage one time to make up for the oversight in the match system that resulted in the lopsided gear advantage swinging toward premades that quickly earned marks against solo queues. However, I would not be willing to entertain the idea of removing gear rewards as I think this is a big incentive to those you label as ‘pvpers’. In my opinion, PVP should be designed toward the primary end user which in my mind is the pvper not the pver as too many games have been ruined by trying to satisfy all the little Johnny’s of the world.

[Kabooa]

Regarding your question, yes. It's an issue. It will always be an issue, because not everyone starts on day one. New players down the line are subject to a catch up period that is only made more difficult on them with such a lopsided progression with no real alternative available yet. With Grand Company PvP this is less of an issue, but that isn't out yet (and with no concrete date when it will be.)

I don't see how a simple concept extension is hard to grasp. As a level 50, you may queue for 30/40 PvP. It doesn't keep you at level 50, it syncs you. Because it's a mechanical advantage if you go into those brackets.

That's acceptable when it's level based, but not when it's rank based? Stat based?

What is it about a level playing field, regardless of the character age, that you find so detestable? If someone plays just as well as you, why should they be penalized simply because they've only hit PvP rank 5 while you're PvP rank 9999999999?

[realistic1]

I don't see how a simple concept extension is hard to grasp.

It is not, I just do not agree with it and dragging the soccer mom attitude into pvp. As previously stated, I refuse to bang my head against a brick wall with a soccer mom and now that this has been determined, adios.

[Kabooa]

That's your assumption. A wrong one at that.

But if you really want such lopsided PvP, by all means, go to a game that will cater to that. I hear Aion is still running.