There should be an ilvl bracket for RBG Groups

Title says my thought, getting into RBG matches where the other team has several people in Rival Gear while at a CR that should not have Rival-geared players is obnoxious, and makes RBGs more difficult to progress your rating in then it should be. PVP should come down to skill and composition, not how much you can out gear the other team. The PVP gearing changes wont change this, since people who come to rbgs in Mythic gear this patch usually do pretty poorly due to a lack of Vers, so they were never a major issue. I’m not sure what the proper solution to this would be, but a good one would be to lower players ilvl if they are currently above what is average for the current bracket (so for 1400-1600, as an example, could be capped at 210, which would be a good approximation of ones ilvl with all 207 pvp gear and a 225 legendary.) I would normally suggest scaling all people to the same ilvl, but then you could get fresh level 60s who could climb and only need gear with proper stats, and wouldn’t need to gear up at all.

The Rival geared players in lower CR brackets are usually carries as well, and something should probably be done about carries for the health of the game. While most do claim to only sell for gold, there’s a good likelihood they RWT the gold later anyway. Not only that, carries cause players to earn achievements they themselves didn’t really earn, and seeing as how importantly Blizzard has taken to how they see carries on the Mythic Hall of Fame, I don’t see why limited time PVP achievements shouldn’t be treated the same way.

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It does. If those players are 1800 in arena playing at 1400 MMR in RBGs, they’re all probably better than you are.

There is no one in the game boosting at your MMR. Known boosters have said as much on these forums.

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And thats even more reason to have an ilvl cap for each bracket, because they’re going to do better than you purely from gear, leaving the question of who is actually better unanswered. Just because people haven’t done arena doesn’t mean they’re not good in rbgs, they simply might not like doing arenas.

You’re only considering what boosters who are on the forums have said. There are still boosters who aren’t on the forums, and you’re only taking them at your word.

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No one needs a boost to beat you. Not trying to be rude (seriously I’m not, but there’s not a nice way to put it), but let’s just be honest here–your season stats aren’t very good, maybe individually you’re better than your rating, maybe you aren’t, but for whatever reason the kind of people you’re able to group with just aren’t competitive at the MMR you’re playing at. That’s what is holding you back. Also, for what it’s worth I know several boosters in-game, literally none of them are ever running in 1400 MMR–they’re selling boosts to people around your MMR to hit 1600 or 1800 while playing on 1800-2k alts, effectively keeping them out of your MMR range.

You completely missed the point. 1800 in arena is harder to get to than 1400 in RBGs, hence my better player statement. Something you aren’t considering though, is all the smurf teams beating you with worse gear are suddenly going to be given free stats boosts and literally keeping you from climbing, instead of the constant ‘boosters are stopping me from climbing’ posts, because one thing there is right now is a ton of people alting. lol I hit 1600 on a 188 ilvl toon playing with other people who were smurfing on lower alts a month or so ago, imagine had our ilvl automatically jumped to 207, or 213 as soon as I entered the MMR range.

Either way, you’ll remain unconvinced because you believe you’re better than your MMR and you’ll target and blame anything other than the amount of time and effort you’ve put into grouping, class knowledge, etc. But as genuinely as I can be saying this, not hitting 1600 this season is a personal issue. I’m fine with a ‘one size fits all ilvl,’ it’s not going to hurt me and will actually help me in a lot of cases, but you aren’t going to automatically jump hundreds of rating if your gear changed.

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Not once did I say that people would get free stat boosts. What I proposed is that if you were above the brackets ilvl, you would be reduced to that ilvl. If you’re already below it, you won’t be affected. Hence, a 195 ilvl in 1400-1600 would remain 195, but a 220 in 1400-1600 would be reduced to 210.

Edit: And I would argue that while 1800 Arena does require skill, it is also dependent on comp and class more than anything. You can run Arena at almost any level and consistently see only a select few classes and specs, while the rest are almost never seen.

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Rated PvP has been garbage for a while and Blizz doesn’t care, as long as they can make $, imo, and skill, while a factor, is only one factor in Rated PvP, since broken classes , specs, and now, covenants factor in hugely, as well. And Blizz could not care less. as long as the money rolls in. If they did, they’d put more work into balance and hire competent PvP devs. Again, just my opinion.

As for carries, if its for gold, Blizz likely loves it. Player is frustrated by getting beat, so he/she buys a carry for gold, which might very well require buying tokens, which puts more $ in Blizz’s coffers. Now that carried player is geared, stomps undergeared players in PvP, leading that player to buy a carry, possibly buying tokens to fund it and the cycle continues.

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I had some games in a row the other night where the enemy team was all 1450 - 1600, with one outlier each at 1750, and another at 1947. Both healers and they carried hard.

I laughed about it but it was still frustrating.

The fact is that this is one of the first seasons in awhile that participation has shot through the roof in all brackets, and not just the upper level. That comes with some growing pains are more and more new, “bad,” first-timer, etc. PvPers are entering the scene, and because RBGs require a lot of extra situational and objective-based awareness outside of “Use all your buttons on this one guy,” you’ve got more people running into brick walls where they can’t be carried or coached as quickly as they can in Arenas.

That being said, a very, very, very large amount of new players also don’t understand the importance of networking to keep their personal MMR and win-rates healthy. They legitimately believe they’re supposed to do 3 games per week with anyone (aka any LFG group) at their similar CR, and they take 2x or 3x longer to make progress as their friends who Btag solid Leaders, Healers, and TCs to play consistently with them. There’s also the option of playing viewer games with the likes of Eazy, UnrealisticA52, FlarknessTV, Teebull, and the host of other RBG streamers who have vast networks of their own, with alts at just about every bracket.

I’ve said it before and copy-pasted in other threads, but anyone new to RBGs has to remember that climbing above 1600 requires lots and lots of real networking to maintain success. Many players (myself included) hit certain milestones months apart in years past, because the climb and competition was that fierce. The current ilvl rewards are making that a reality once again, so people have to be realistic about their expectations if they can’t network, perform, or improve at the levels they’d like to gear themselves out in.

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You’re where you are because of individual skill and who you choose to queue with.

I’m a better player, and have much better players in my network of friends to queue with. Here is an alt with similar games played and not a drastic ilevel increase. https://check-pvp.fr/us/Tichondrius/Fadingthree

The quality of players you have access to, especially on alliance is a bigger issue than mmr/gear.

This, I’ve finally gotten around 1750 as alliance since i found a consistent group to go with, and strangely, you seem less likely to find anyone who is at 2k or higher in that bracket (i assume the 1800-2k players you see from 1400-1600 are players in yolo groups, that tend to outgear and probably outskill you individually, so they alone can shift the game if you aren’t careful)

Fixed it for you, this is the problem atm. Everything else would just make things worse.

I don’t mind it too much as it is, but if gear acquisition were to be changed, I think you should either be able to put in a ton of time to get the pvp gear if you aren’t able to rank up, or get it for cheaper if you can rank up. Maybe some honor cost reduction if you’re already Challenger/Rival, and if you aren’t, you can still get 213/220, you’d just have to spend more on it.

I think making it so people can’t be 220 in a bracket where the best PVP gear possible is 207 is still a better solution though. PVP gear should come from PVP content regardless, so the only change one could make is what you need to do to obtain that gear by doing PVP.