A big point that people are bringing up here is about working for the gear, which is a fair point. This is an MMO and making your character feel powerful over the course of your playing is an essential part of that. But another big part is working for the WIN.
The gaming industry is mature, and certain design philosophies need to be addressed to accommodate for the times and direction gaming culture has taken. Esports is the flavor of the the industry, and WoW does much to bolster itself as a competitive sport. This is no secret with Blizzard-hosted tournaments for M+ races and of course the AWC tournaments ever season. But WoW canât even begin to boast its competitive status BECAUSE
Inherent advantage is a big problem in a game that wants to be âcompetitiveâ. League of Legends begins games with all players at level 1 and no inventory. Counterstrike begins all games with equal budget and side swapping at intermission. StarCraft starts all players with equal resources. All of these games, even if you donât play or like them, are cultural pinnacles of Esports because of their fairness and worthiness to be deemed competitive. Advantage in these games is earned through the passage of time in the game and through player behavior/decision making. In LoL, a successful Jungler ambush on the enemy ADC can give your teamâs ADC a strong early lead, snowballing from that strategic attack. In Counterstrike, someone can defy the odds and win a 3v1 in a focused stream of shooting developed through practice, forcing those killed to lose their weapons in the next round. In StarCraft, a Protoss player can warp zealots and attack the enemyâs Zerg drones to secure an early economic advantage. The only advantage that you can have in those games is the advantage you create in the context of that isolated match. Both teams have equal opportunity to create that advantage for themselves.
These types of game-evolving plays exists in WoW but are overshadowed by gear disparity, lessening the significance of tactical decision making. This is the whole problem. Tactical decision making and player ability should be the ONLY deciding factor in a competitive setting! How would one ever hope to step into Diamond league in LoL if Diamond players started the game with with an additional 2000 gold? How would you leave Silver league in CS:GO if everyone ranked above you started with kevlar, a helmet, and an AK-47 during the pistol round? You get what I mean.
Having better gear significantly increases your odds of winning against another player with lesser gear. There is no debate about this. But I say to you, that even if all playersâ gear became homogenized, those same players that did the work to get the highest rank and thus highest gear would remain at the top of the ranks. The players that have done the work to obtain their better gear would still retain their knowledge and experience to win most of the time against lesser skilled players on a level playing field. In this sense the competition is much more meaningful because a loss is derived entirely from your mistakes without the gear variable. The only difference is, without the inherent advantage, you lose the wins that your gear crutch gave you. This obviously upsets people who are in the higher ranks. I mentioned working for the win at the beginning of my post. It is as simple as this. The more gear you obtain, the less you have to work for the win. But that is what we should strive to do, is to be better players but in a FAIR context.
If the problem is the rewarding factor of putting in the work to climb the ranks, there are other solutions to that. You can provide players with things that isnât gear to make it worth it. Take a look at any other successful competitive game with a no inherent advantage system.
Legion had templates, and BfA had PvP scaling. However, I donât think they did it correctly.
Personal idea time:
Players could be given a standard health pool and 2000 points of secondary stats to allocate freely before the gates open in a PvP instance. A limit of 30% vers perhaps and other appropriate caps on the other stats. You can save a stat allocation profile and have it auto-select if you desire. This way, players still have equal opportunity but also can customize their character the same way obtaining gear would.
TLDR: I enjoy WoW, but I donât take WoW seriously as a competitive game in its current state, and neither should you.
