Bad design: WoW Gearing is inverse handicap?

so tying pvp gear to rating is acts like an inverse handicap. Basically the better you are, the more of a pregame advantage you have.

Its the opposite of other games do. Handicap in games like golf, go, etc imply a small advantage you give less skilled players but in wow a less skilled player has to not only learn but also outplay a more skilled opponent enough to counter the gear disadvantage they have.

Really? thats good design?
at least equalize a bit more instead of making games even more unbalanced. Closer matches are more fun, higher skilled ppl dont need a gear advantage to roll over the newbs learning the game.

We have to find a way to reward rating because it is very important, but definitely not in a way that negatively affects gameplay even more. Not to mention kills playing with alts eventually making less and less ppl play arena.

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Cosmetics only.
Fixed.
/thread

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A lot of higher skilled players say they need that handicap. Who knows why.

who

i don’t know anyone with 226 gear that thinks that

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A lot of my friends believe that higher rating needs better gear to show they are better then someone else. Not sure much for a handicap but because it makes them more powerful against low geared people.

Anyone good at PvP doesn’t think gear should matter because:
A) It already doesn’t for them (everyone they play is 226 as well).
B) They want to know when they won it was because they played better than their opponents.
C) They aren’t worried about what they can achieve in PvP without a gear advantage.
D) They understand the importance of alts to the PvP ladder.

I’ve actually never spoken to anyone in-game who wants a power advantage to exist in PvP. It’s only untrackable classic/alt posters here who most likely do NOT have the best gear in the game or even close to it who advocate for gear disparities. Ironically they are probably also the players who would benefit the most from them not existing.

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Right now, pvp just doesn’t feel good. I don’t understand why they decided to tie better gear behind rating. Unless I’m misremembering, didn’t higher rating back in the day only reward the elite skinned set and aesthetic enchantments?

And to be honest, it doesn’t even feel like gear matters sometimes. My warlock is 217 ilvl. with Demon armor active, i am still getting hit by 22.8k final verdicts. how is getting hit for half my HP by a near-spammable ability good game design?

and i get it, sacrolash is BS. but they are addressing it in 9.1 . I see nothing on the horizon for correcting Rets.

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Costmetics, (better looking gear/more unique) and titles do this. Player power is actually less noticeable because its not immediately apparent at a quick glance if they are “skilled”.

For 6 years (MoP-Legion) yes. Although I think in MoP for a season there was a weapon you could get with higher ilvl. Before that there was a power gap, but it wasn’t this large. I distinctly remember players in blue gear being at the top of the ladder in TBC. Try that now.

PvP gear disparities only returned when Ion (Gurgthock-Elistist Jerks Resto Shaman-The Ultimate PvE shut up PvP guy Lord) took over the game. The first expansion he was in control of from start to finish was BfA and look what happened. They went from this philosophy around PvP gear (5:27 and on):

To what we have now. Basically a complete 180. You can’t tell me a shift like that happens without the person in charge causing it.

Btw this interview is actually really insightful and touches on a lot of stuff people complain about now. For example 11:30-12:30-Talking about stacking modifiers and hitting too hard vs sustained damage and how they are fixing it in Legion with templates:

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go read the other thread where top glads are asking basically the same thing.

PvP is not about gearing, it needs an influx of new players to stay healthy or it will continue to die off. That means PVE players or PVP players that want to play an alt cause they are tired of their main. It doesnt need to be a MOBA but its not a gear grind ladder like PVE is either.

Love the job you did pulling that up. This is definitely in large part Ions fault. He needs to be replaced.

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the first post is a r1 gladiator saying ilvl shouldn’t hinge on rating, the second post is from one of the resident trolls i assume(hidden lol) and the first gladiator i find scrolling is kamron who agrees with revo

either you are trolling me or i misunderstood you; nobody worth listening to likes rating=ilvl and it’s very obvious

Holy moly I watched that entire interview and everything Brian said was completely flipped during BFA. It was amazing when he was talking about how its a MMO and gear upgrading should be a thing and gives an estimate about what he thinks that should be (1% every 5 ilvls) and we look at that same phrase being used now and its ~2% per ilvl.

Yeah it’s pretty crazy and that was off the top of his head in the interview. In Legion it was actually implemented as 1% more stats per 10 item levels.

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Well there were no mention of pvp fixes on 9.1. Soooo maybe on 9.2 or 10.0???

Heh… I had a debate with my small friend group as to “why gear shouldn’t matter in PVP”
A few of them were adamant PVP needed gear rewards or no one would play… I tried my best to point out that they would play for cosmetic rewards in past xpacs and that gear advantage should be something that exists only in PVE.

I ended up sending them a quote from yourself actually haha(hope you don’t mind me linking it)
imgur. com/a/FJd0CYL

oh, we misunderstood each other then. We are in agreement ilvl=rating is bad

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That rant by Holinka is so relevant now holy moly. Does this dude still work on WoW PvP? If not, why not?