Yes, absolutely. I’d say the overwhelming majority of forum posts are people complaining that something perfectly fine is “broken” and in reality it’s just them playing incorrectly or, in the case of gearing, wanting immediate gratification.
It’s okay to have to work for some things. It’s okay to make mistakes and learn and improve.
It’s ridiculous that so many people make so many whining threads that every class but theirs is broken and OP instead of just asking for help.
in the context of the debate what youre saying doesnt seem to be relevant.
Accountability for my actions has nothing to do with how the devs have created the gearing system.
People like the OP and myself dont seem to be complaining about mistakes or learning to improve. Its about asking for a different system to gearing. Playing better/worse has nothing to do with flattening out gear requirements.
Go look at GW2. There are OBVIOUS skillgaps between players and the competitiveness of PvP is not compromised one bit because of the way they have implemented gear. For the most part, gear is inconsequential to the equation for success in PvP for that game.
The issues with PvP in this game are gear disparity, lack of fluid combat, the overabundance of CC and a lack of overall balance between Melee and Ranged. Also the rock>paper>scissors and constant FOTM which has been ongoing since TBC. Blizzard has never been able to balance this game and its like they just gave up trying ages ago.
As for gear, wait till mid or late season and try loading up arenas or BG’s where alts or casuals have no gear and dont care. The number of times a BG loads up and you note half the team is wearing PvE or low end PvP gear. And if you listen to any commentary from casuals in BG’s its obvious they dont give a crap. If you levelled out the gearing system it would be better for all involved.
Youre advocating that it doesnt take much to gear and isnt hard…then why arent people actually doing it mainstream? And the impact to MY gameplay…waiting in ques only to get scrapped because casuals dont give a care…has nothing to do with my own personal accountability.
The design of CC’s is also fundamentally flawed in Warcraft. Its only a skill issue to a certain point.
Bottom line is there are underlying design and philosophy issues which need addressing and just trying to promote some type of meritocracy argument is pointless and just plain ignorant after a while.
I’m like a 12 year GW2 veteran and very familiar with how it works. Further, GW2 has a fraction of the pvp base that wow does, despite better & more frequent balance, better dev communication, and more versatile pvp: Ever since launch the game has been plagued with a consistent attrition issue in which people constantly complain about “having nothing to do” and feeling that there’s nothing to work for. Wow had a similar problem with the tournament realm. There’s something fundamentally intrinsic about gearing a character and getting stronger in an RPG that attracts players and makes them stay (even if part of it is a forced time-spent to earn metric).
? There are SO many issues with MMR, extremely long Q times, and significant mismatches. Have you done competitive gw2 pvp, or are you just a wvw player?
This really just shows that you are NOT taking accountability and blaming the game instead of your own play, but I’ll break it down.
Is not and has not been a thing since BFA with corruptions & pve trinkets (although it was a SLOG in slands to grind).
Combat and movement are EXTREMELY fluid in wow, especially when you recognize what you’re doing. It’s just a lot of new/inexperienced/unaware players don’t actually realize how important the movement and rotations/burst are.
It was pruned in BFA & people complained over and over to bring it back. They brought some back in slands and people still complained and wanted more unpruning. Now it’s back and people are complaining that there’s too much. Also, there has to be some balance between burst & cc or every game is a pve dampening fest, which no one wants.
This just really shows that you’re a casual observer PoV. While there are obviously balance outliers every season (and some insane exceptions like 10.0.7 ret paladin), the majority of players are not fotm rerolling unless there’s something exceptionally egregious once you get past, like, 1800. Further, this “rock/paper/scissors” and “bad melee beats bad wizard and good wizard beats good melee” is a huge myth. When you look at things from r1 to tournament play and even gladiator+ (when people are playing their classes more or less correctly with some form of synergy), you see very similar winrates across all classes and specs with maps mattering more than actual comps.
Brother, I have grinded the elite set on every single class for the past 2 expansions every single season. I also work a full time job, have a relationship, engage socially with friends, and start the season pveing so I come late to gearing EVERY SINGLE SEASON and do exactly the grind you’re describing. It is not bad at all. Sure, I lose some games, but I just smile and practice my rotations/cc while we lose. And I Q up again.
The only people who say this don’t understand how it works, where the skill is, and why it’s required. You literally don’t even know, what you don’t know, man.
It’s not like blizzard isn’t aware of GW2 or their design philosophy (or vice versa). GW2 devs have openly said that they know grinds are overall more popular because they create a way for people to feel rewarded for playing and engaged, and they want their gameplay to speak for itself. I admire that, and I enjoy that gameplay. That being said, I find myself playing gw2 much less than wow and it IS a lot less competitive for aforementioned reasons.
I’m gonna echo what this dude said. Legion stat template was the best thing they ever did to pvp, yet everyone hated it. Why? Because most casual players are not good enough to beat other players on skill alone, so they want to have a gear advantage. Personally I think competitive pvp should never have gear advantage, it’s boring to lose to a worse player just because they put in more hours than you, and it’s not competitive. However the casual pvp playerbase disagree with us. What can you do.
This current system where at least it is relatively fast to farm full gear is the best we’re going to get. It’s not a bad middle ground.
Legion didn’t have total equalization.
It’s the best we’ve had yet.
Yeah, by far. Personally, I’d like it if conquest gear DID have “templates” on it where it would have verse main and you could pick whatever off stat you wanted. That, and maybe spoils of war picking up faster later in the season, but past that, gearing feels p perfect atm.
I feel good when I get an upgrade and see my numbers go up. I don’t feel like it’s a chore to maintain characters. I can play casually and still gear/be strong. It’s what feels GOOD about an rpg!
I think this is a fine perspective and okay experience to have if you’re a seasoned pvper. I’m gearing up my fire mage in all pre-honor gear (not transferring honor), and trust me I do no damage in BGs (I also die in 2 secs). I only have the trinkets so far. But it’s still fun for me because I like the challenge and am re-getting-used-to pvping on my mage. But this is only because the only thing I have done in this game is PVP, and I know it’ll be better when I get better gear.
New pvpers do not have this benefit, and the initial experience of having no impact and dying in 2 secs will discourage them from playing to get to the point where we are. The gear disparity when you walk in with pre-honor gear is too great.
What should be done is that you should be able to gear up for pvp and pve and be able to use the
Gear obtained from both to do both.
Get rid of versatility and just make both pve and pvp equal for characters.
I’m sick of having to grind for pvp gear as well as pve gear.
This is such a lame excuse. As if the other people you’re talking to are all on welfare or something. Yeah, buddy - you’re the only one with a job out here. You’re the only one with a family. You’re the only one that has other duties and responsibilities. Please.
They aren’t?
My guy, I’m the most casual of casual players, and I still somehow manage to get geared up. I even walk away from the game for weeks at a time, come back to it, and pick up right where I left off without any trouble. Gearing is so fast these days. It used to take a lot longer.
This is the PVP forums in a nutshell. 
What gear disparity? You mean the temporary one that exists while people gear up? You mean the one that smooths out just as you’re ready for a solid ratings push?
I don’t see the problem.
I’m not sure how many MMO’s they’ve tried, but - in my experience - WoW has literally the most fluid combat and movement out of all of them.
I’ve also played GW2 in the past. I mained a Mesmer, and - yes - I played competitive. I got bored of GW2, though. The problem is the very one we’ve been talking about in this thread: A lack of (numerical) progression. While GW2 was fun enough, I always low-key missed playing WoW. I missed the feeling of getting an actual, impactful upgrade.
(P.S. - Nas, I loved your post. If I could have liked it more than once, I would have.)
Yeah, that’s not the reason why people hated Legion stat templates; also, this notion that it’s just the causals/bads arguing for an end-game PVP gear progression (for a “Gear advantage”) is next level fried. 
Both Nas and Kennie here are excellent players, and - yet - they, too, are all for an end-game PVP gear progression. Are you really going to stand here and call them casuals/bads looking for a “Gear advantage?” The fact that they’re here disproves what you just said. Think about it.
This, 100%. 
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but we were all new PVP players once. And it sucked. We all died in 2 secs. Over and over and over again. What happened? Well, we didn’t quit - that’s for sure. We sucked it up, toughed it out, got our gear, and improved as a player. If people are going to quit PVP because they can’t handle a beat down, then maybe that’s for the best? Maybe pet battles is more their pace? To each their own.
There really is no acceptable excuse
(I know you’re not meaning to make any excuses, I’m just saying that most of the “Reasons” people fall back on don’t hold up to any amount of scrutiny).
Yeah, so, we tried that. It was a train-wreck. We found, by bitter experience, that it’s best to keep the two relatively separate like they are now.
Maybe it’s time to think about playing a non-RPG game then? Have you tried Super Mario?
the gear heads are out again
down with gearing
Yes, but if accounts are to believed (e.g. x polls), PVP is a low participation activity by % of players. We stuck it out, but it seems that most don’t. The aim should be to find out why that happens and try to improve participation. I think the early experiences for would-be pvpers is part of the problem, and that includes getting wrecked before you get gear or experience. Experience comes from time played and generally can’t be solved for you. Gearing is a systems and game design choice.
If you look at how pve works, the early experiences are easy, if not trivial. This keeps people around and the progression involves getting better gear and skills so that you can gradually challenge yourself to more difficult encounters (for the record I don’t actually pve). In PVP, MMR serves as the proxy for increasing encounter difficulty, but the low end of this scale is far from trivial if you’re inexperienced or have poor gear. Perhaps not perfect analogy, but Imo it’s this low end experience that largely makes or breaks whether a pvper sticks around, and the ramp should be smoother.
I really liked this post as a whole, but I think this is the best summary of it.
I think this current gearing is the best we’ve ever had and is pretty close to perfect.
However, just because it’s really good, I am not so stuck in my thinking that I don’t believe things can still be improved.
That all being said, I think people complaining about gear are really just looking for something to complain about or not understanding what’s happening.
For example:
I was gearing my boomy as my 3rd or 4th character (as discussed in a other thread, I like playing from the ground up and gearing XD) and I topped damage in bgs and never died despite being in (scaled up) 588 gear. Some people looked at that scoreboard damage and said, “wow, boomy is broken”.
In the SAME BG, I saw someone say that I “probably just no-life grinded early access to have an unfair gear advantage”. I had the lowest gear possible and didn’t even have a trinket set bonus.
In another thread yesterday we saw someone say that evoker is broken because one didn’t die in a stun and silence combo. While evokers ARE overtuned atm, this is almost certainly a case of people just not doing their basic rotation properly. In that same thread, people threatened to quit until “blizzard can balance their game”.
Gear, balance, and wow pvp are not perfect. I think it’s good to be vocal about what is and isn’t working. But at the end of the day, especially in pvp, I think the vast majority of complaints are people looking for an excuse for why they lost - not the reason.
Most of the time, people just want to vent and deflect frustration. However, if someone is going to quit over that, they were always going to quit anyways.
agreed I play wow for the rpg. if I wanted a easy access pvp I would play fortnite.
Yeah like how people complain that the horde is losing in bg’s and then go do a faction transfer thus amplifing the existing problem instead of help the horde side unify and push back.
this is the case with every comp game ever. you can remove gear completely and its still tough to start. Have you ever played a fighting game? or a shooter? all have a barrier to entry which equals out to get stomped until you get better. Thats actually good for people who stick around because they pick up on what not to do quickly.
Which is crazy, because that’s not even a thing! I’ve played horde and alliance for years and both sides say, “oh, our side sucks. The other one always wins” and im just here winning 80% of my bgs on both factions XD
Well that’s the thing, they don’t even amplify the problem, they just say, “oh. Now ally sucks” or, “oh, I just get unlucky groups”.
Meanwhile they’re low damage/healing or padding by fighting pointlessly on the road, or dont want to attack/defend a base etc.
It’s often the vocal complainers the ones who are contributing the least meaningfully (or are just straight toxic) and they don’t even realize it.
“Anecdote”
Literally every player in season 3
Ya’ll try soooooo hard.
You are wrong. The reason players play this game is because it’s gear based PvP. Blizz listened to the vocal minority crying about gear advantages and tried Templates. Which was massively hated and removed the RPG aspects of the game making it unplayably. Blizz apologized said they were wrong and removed Templates.
The point in playing this game is to get an advantage from gear. That is exciting!!! It’s why we log in. Players want chase items that are ultra powerful to go after and once they attain them. They can’t wait to own up some PvP. To test it’s power.
That is why gear based PvP is so much better. It’s the real PvP because it’s not just about skill it’s about POWER!! This is the fantasy players are after in this genre. PvP in this genre isn’t supposed to be that balanced, it should be fun and fill that fantasy which is really what is important.
Love your sarcasm.
Yep, rated gear is just another method of bulyling people which is what the WoW playerbase likes to do.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is schizo and needs to queue some LFG dungeons.
Yeah totally agree I just got back to this poop show and I got dumped on for about 2 weeks before everything started to click. Now im topping leaderboards and wininng most of my matches with whatever side i decide to run.
I said this exact thing on another thread or reddit just the other day.
I was not reffering to you - and if it felt like I was I apologize. I use that term in reference to people who respond with anger over this video game and defend things zealously with out good faith discussion. If you look at the beginning of my posting I started this whole thing of curiously and friendly, I openly admitted to being wrong in a few areas to based on having expired information - however as I got met with increasing levels of what I perceive to be salt, I started giving it back. There is thing in these forums where disagreement is treated almost as dissent - and am not going along with that.