Quote Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur View Post
At the time of Wolf's Den release Morale gave an incredible advantage, one meant to allow i55 PvP players to match i70 PvE players and i70 PvP players to match i90 PvE. A player in i55/i70 PvP gear dealt ~30% more damage and took ~23% less damage than someone geared in i55/i70 PvE. If Morale was returned to its original form and i150 levelsync was maintained players full geared in PvP gear would be 70% stronger than those in any PvE gear.
I'm fully aware of the bonuses Morale provided.I'm also fully aware that it was done this way expressly to allow ilvl 55 players to match ilvl 70 players and so on, but that made perfect sense, at the time. With each subsequent patch, PvP gear is outpaced by item levels of PvE gear because PvE gear scales upwards of 20+ levels during the life cycle of a patch (ie: gear level scaled between 180-210 over the course of 3.0 to 3.2). This was the same deal back before 2.4. If they had not provided a sufficient Morale bonus to PvP gear, then the PvP gear would have been just as useless then as it is now because it would have been outstripped by scaling PvE gear that was faster and easier to attain.

Again, this was not an "incredible" advantage. I was never rendered utterly helpless because of it. It was only meant to allow players to compete at the current maximum available gear level. Personally, I don't think that this was a bad thing. It did mean that under-geared players (those below even the current average item level) got left behind, but their disadvantage is no greater than the one they face when playing against up to date PvE sets and only lasted as long as it took them to gear up.

Quote Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur View Post
If Morale is returned to its original implementation i190+ PvE gear will no longer be competitive. Only i180 and i205 PvP gear will be viable in i150 sync PvP. You would then be forced to gear up through PvP if you wanted to participate in PvP unless Morale was added to various pieces of PvE gear.
This is not necessarily true. Firstly, item level 190 gear was only an example. That gear is already long outdated in PvE, so advocating to keep it competitive in PvP when most players are already in 220 sets and above is kind of pointless. Regardless, that's neither here nor there. The more important part is that you're working under the assumption that SE would keep the item level sync the same, should the re-implement Morale. They simply could not do that because of the item level 205 PvP sets.

If the item level 180 PvP set was the top end set, then yes. SE could keep the level sync at 150 and still provide a fair battle ground between equally geared PvE and PvP players. Morale advantage would work much the same way it did pre-2.4 in that it would simply be allowing the PvP gear to survive for the life cycle of the current patch and stay competitive with an ever evolving selection of PvE gear. However, now that they've put out a ilvl 205 set, they forced their own hand. The item level sync would have to be adjusted to allow for higher end PvE sets (roughly around item level 230 or above) to be competitive. I would like to hope that SE was aware of that when they implemented the 205 set, but we won't know for sure until they come to a decision on what they want to do.

Quote Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur View Post
So very wrong. This very mentality is why Wolf's Den (The Fold) failed hard and was mostly empty within a month after it was released. The survival of competitive game modes is completely dependent on ease of newbie entry and retention. Veterans alone can not sustain PvP content.
We're gonna have to disagree on this one, because I kept playing Wolves Den expressly because there was a gear discrepancy.

I have no doubt that the Ranking system and gear discrepancies played a hand in some players leaving the Fold early. Competition isn't for everyone, so it's not surprising that some people don't stick it out. However, for a lot of us, the fact that Rank 30 allowed for an advantage gave us something to strive for. The seasoned players kept playing for that very reason. What really killed it for a lot of people (myself included), was the repetition of it all. After a while you're just doing the same thing over and over, and you're always playing against the same people. When I was still climbing ranks, that was fine, because I was getting something out of the deal, but once I reached cap there was just nothing to do anymore. In that regard, seasonal Rankings are a welcome improvement, even if it is just a vanity thing and an ultimately futile venture.

You're definitely right that retention (though not necessarily "newbie" retention) is what keeps competitive game modes alive, but you do not retain players by watering down the field and encouraging everyone to hold hands and skip along in perfect equality. That kind of defies the point of competing. What provides true retention is the prospect of rewards and achievements. People need to be encouraged to strive for better standing, be it in skill or gear or winnings. You can't get that encouragement when your potential growth rate is cut out from the knees at the word go.

With that in mind, though, Morale doesn't even necessarily have to be a flat stat increase. There are other options. Iagainsti's list of scaling effects is a good example. Personally, I'd like to see specific Morale attributes for specific jobs on specific pieces, allowing for players to customize what kind of effects they want to bring into the match with them (ie: Wear gloves A for a party defensive boost. Wear gloves B for an Hp boost, etc); though, that's highly unlikely because SE would have to be committed to creating multiple PvP gear sets (including crafted ones) with each new patch. In any case, the options are almost endless. Completely deleting the stat from the game for the sake of keeping everything "fair" and ultimately stagnant in a competitive setting also eliminates whatever possibilities we could have taken advantage off by changing it to work for the game mode. That would just seems like an awful waste to me.