Just like education in the real world, hard work, or time invested in a career. These things seperate people - the ones who make effort from the ones who don't. There are some exceptions of course. But the reality is only bad players or casual players who don't care about gear really freak out about such things.
Look if your gear sucks? Players have every right not to want to play with you. The same goes if you are a bad player. If bad players stayed with bad players, and good with good there is not an issue with the system.
There simply has to be some kind of filtration system in place. Trust me no gearscore may sound good to bad players but the rage and going off on others would be even worse.
Yes, education, hard work, and time invested in a career do tend to separate the successful from the slackers.
But here's the thing: Gear Score is a very bad measure of these things in this game. As noted in my original post, a person who achieved gear by grinding dungeons and learning their character, and a person who spent 5 minutes buying gear from the AH, can have exactly the same GS. It won't differentiate between the two.
In that sense, in analogy with a person's career, GS is like a person's age. Yes an older person will tend to have more experience in the workforce, a better career, a higher income, etc., etc., then a younger person. But that is not at all guaranteed to be the case, and age is not a good indicator of that. There's plenty of deadbeat adults too.
And will you people please stop with this nonsense about "only bad players want GS to be gone". There have been quite a few geared and good players commenting in this thread who also agree that GS is either flawed, toxic, or both, and should go. There are good valid reasons for wanting GS to go other than pure self-interest.
Yes, education, hard work, and time invested in a career do tend to separate the successful from the slackers.
But here's the thing: Gear Score is a very bad measure of these things in this game. As noted in my original post, a person who achieved gear by grinding dungeons and learning their character, and a person who spent 5 minutes buying gear from the AH, can have exactly the same GS. It won't differentiate between the two.
In that sense, in analogy with a person's career, GS is like a person's age. Yes an older person will tend to have more experience in the workforce, a better career, a higher income, etc., etc., then a younger person. But that is not at all guaranteed to be the case, and age is not a good indicator of that. There's plenty of deadbeat adults too.
And will you people please stop with this nonsense about "only bad players want GS to be gone". There have been quite a few geared and good players commenting in this thread who also agree that GS is either flawed, toxic, or both, and should go. There are good valid reasons for wanting GS to go other than pure self-interest.
I also played Tera, which went F2P quite a while ago.
After the game went free, everything turned into iLvl HAMSTER. The requirements for getting into a party are usually well above what's needed to complete the dungeon. The dungeon may have an iLvl requirement of 140 but if you're lower than 170, you're getting kicked. To put this into perspective, getting 30 extra iLvls is pretty **** expensive and very time consuming, the equivalent of going from 15-20k GS in NW.
Back into NW, GS is even worse than Tera. Even GWD parties are requiring 15k+ GS to queue for them. Not to mention, people hold their GS equivalent to skill, which isn't the case. At least from the PvP threads crying about TRs, there are tons of 20k+ players out there who play with the skill of a 4k GS. The GS stat should be left in place but it should be invisible to spectate or inspect.
I use it as a measurement of how far my equips are progressing. It shouldn't be used to discriminate based on false weight.
Broken mechanics, broken class designs, lack of actual content, and over zealous, bronze-age moderation?
actually I posted my issue this before and deleted ridiculous when I encountered a DC 10 gs and I am 20 gs GWF my God couldn't land a scratch on him so whats the use of this GS if the admin can't fix the right benchmark of every classes, your balance team is I guess sleeping when they are supposed to do the job.
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zekethesinnerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 805Arc User
edited January 2015
Still, complain here, complain there, and no ideas how to repalce GS... we need a measure unit, in this case its not-so-effective GS, but at least it is...
(Sin)cerely
Kain
0
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Still, complain here, complain there, and no ideas how to repalce GS... we need a measure unit, in this case its not-so-effective GS, but at least it is...
(Sin)cerely
Kain
Same GS but calculated using the Diminished return functions (https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3dqpvhuavj), so more balanced builds will give more and 6k recovery / crit will give much much less than 4k power + 2k recovery/crit
Same GS but calculated using the Diminished return functions (https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3dqpvhuavj), so more balanced builds will give more and 6k recovery / crit will give much much less than 4k power + 2k recovery/crit
That is interesting. However you do have have have some consideration over stats. Do control bonus and stamina gain count, after all a HR speccing into such stats for example may equally be gs HAMSTER if it gave more than power and hp. If it didn't give more than hp and power than they'd be more effective since they don't have diminishing returns. For a CW, you may not want a deflection stat, but to gs ***** that may entice you to do so anyway. So there are still some things to think about which may end up having similar problems. Plus you can just buy it all out, however it's probably fairly hard to have an accurate skill score. Would it even be worth it? You'd still have people judging and hence it's still peoples attitudes that need to change.
I voted to keep GS the way it is. What does need to change is the inspect player option. You should be able to block other people from inspecting you. Since a persons gear score is abused and doesn't really tell you anything about a players abilities.
I voted to keep GS the way it is. What does need to change is the inspect player option. You should be able to block other people from inspecting you. Since a persons gear score is abused and doesn't really tell you anything about a players abilities.
How would that change anything. Those that had it on blocked would just be treated as the leper at that point.
0
zekethesinnerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 805Arc User
I voted to keep GS the way it is. What does need to change is the inspect player option. You should be able to block other people from inspecting you. Since a persons gear score is abused and doesn't really tell you anything about a players abilities.
-Did u kill him?
-With my right i refuse to answer this question.
*clap clap clap*
Next smart idea?
@micky(Jannie)
So more likly somthing based on all %-tage income we have? But multiplied by 100 and sumbited as number? (well would end around 500-1k give or take) But problem is, diffrent stat has diffrent soft caps (basicly its mutipled for somthing around 780(CA), like ~1460 for regen or ls, and 2540 for crit/arpen, etc), so it affect %-tage income, (8% roso CA, ~14% regen, ~26% crit etc, and ofc "endless" dmg from powah). It also may be quite unfair if we would compare difrent clases based on difrent must-have stats.
(Sin)cerely
Kain
0
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited January 2015
Ok after giving this some thought I agree with point, to a degree. GS should be something you have an option to allow people to view. However, when inside an instance, when inspecting a player it should tell you whether they have alts and how many times they have successfully completed a dungeon as well as how many times they have queued into it. Those numbers would tell you alone enough about a player to quickly judge them and are more accurate then GS.
Ok after giving this some thought I agree with point, to a degree. GS should be something you have an option to allow people to view. However, when inside an instance, when inspecting a player it should tell you whether they have alts and how many times they have successfully completed a dungeon as well as how many times they have queued into it. Those numbers would tell you alone enough about a player to quickly judge them and are more accurate then GS.
I don't think the mass intended audience would want/care to see that. They need a simple number and a simple raid.
0
dragoness10Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 780Arc User
edited January 2015
Padding your GS is like padding your bra - it's superficial, and only helps a bit in a moshpit.
It was funny today I got accused of being a "whiney 23K GS" in PvP when I am only around 16K on my main. I guess my character needs a new bra.
Those in the know never judge by GS alone.
" I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
Ok after giving this some thought I agree with point, to a degree. GS should be something you have an option to allow people to view. However, when inside an instance, when inspecting a player it should tell you whether they have alts and how many times they have successfully completed a dungeon as well as how many times they have queued into it. Those numbers would tell you alone enough about a player to quickly judge them and are more accurate then GS.
they should add a log of what and how many monsters we kill, would be cool. they have that in runescape
Still, complain here, complain there, and no ideas how to repalce GS... we need a measure unit, in this case its not-so-effective GS, but at least it is...
(Sin)cerely
Kain
I mean, gearscore is the cleanest method Cryptic has to serve its intended audience in providing an option to at least give an idea on the potential effectiveness of a player.
I haven't seen a better suggestion, only rants about how a few people where treated poorly. If there is a better option, I'm all for it.
I mean, gearscore is the cleanest method Cryptic has to serve its intended audience in providing an option to at least give an idea on the potential effectiveness of a player.
I haven't seen a better suggestion, only rants about how a few people where treated poorly. If there is a better option, I'm all for it.
This is why I vote to keep it.
I voted to keep it too, and almost all of my characters are "low GS." Only one of them is 13k almost 14 now. But he's the one I play the most and lots of people would probably still say he is low GS.
I think the issue here is how people are using the number, not the number itself. You say it's intent is to serve the players as a way to gauge the potential effectiveness of other players, but I don't think this was the intent at all. That's just how people have chosen to use the number. I think it was meant mostly to give you a goal to strive for and a way to see progress towards that goal. Also, it's a good way to separate content into tiers based on some basic stats so you aren't getting one shot by things all the time because you're in Castle Never with a piece of level 59 quest gear as your chest piece. Now, granted, that last one can still happen. Clearly, the system isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. Removing it entirely is a bad idea.
But the system isn't the problem here; the problem, as usual, is the people.
Using gear score is the easy way to skimp on adding an additional 15-20 character levels. It muddles level 60+ into one giant argument. If there were content gated for character levels 65 at the completion of Sharandar, 70 at completion of Dread Ring, 75 upon completion of IWD, and 80 for "Endgame" we wouldn't be having these arguments. Much of this argument has been exacerbated by the Tiamat debacle. Honestly, it should have the same boon requirements as IWD. People are bringing blue/green gear vanilla level 60 players (just yesterday there were 4 or 5 9k players in one instance, which is puzzling, given the entrance to WoD is gated at 10k, right?) and expecting to cakewalk Tiamat. The campaign boons, while not always adding to the mythical "gear score" requirement by giving some passive bonuses, do add to the survivability of the encounter. Also available in the campaigns are better gear that can improve the effectiveness of the player's equipment. I communicated to a "lower geared" player the importance of the boons and the advantages for them to finish some of the content. Surprisingly, they seemed very receptive and understanding.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
0
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
I mean, gearscore is the cleanest method Cryptic has to serve its intended audience in providing an option to at least give an idea on the potential effectiveness of a player.
I haven't seen a better suggestion, only rants about how a few people where treated poorly. If there is a better option, I'm all for it.
This is why I vote to keep it.
I did propose a better suggestion then gs, with no ranting attached.
What I had proposed was that upon inspecting a player, it would show you the stats they have for whatever instance they are in or you are queued for. For example, say you are queued for CN and you inspect them, it would then show something akin to this: (I made up these numbers)
Stats for player HAMSTER in CN:
Number of times completed: 100
Number of times entered: 120
Optional by choice of said player allowing people to see:
GS
Number of alts
Assuming you in CN, then it would show you the stats for only CN when someone random joins. With those first 2 numbers someone can make a much more accurate judgement on how well a player will perform then by using their GS. This is because say they have 10 chars and they playing on a new alt, whilst It will show 0 times entered and completed, by revealing the number of alts, it indicates to players that they have experience on another Char. Also if the number of times entered is much higher then the number of times completed, it probably indicates either a poor player or one who isn't willing to stick around for a team.
I mean, gearscore is the cleanest method Cryptic has to serve its intended audience in providing an option to at least give an idea on the potential effectiveness of a player.
I haven't seen a better suggestion, only rants about how a few people where treated poorly. If there is a better option, I'm all for it.
This is why I vote to keep it.
How about just getting rid of the GS NUMBER, and if you want to see a character's gear, you have to actually spend more than 2 seconds inspecting the character to look at gear sets, enchants, etc., and not go by one single number which doesn't even actually measure the entirety of the player's gear?
I did propose a better suggestion then gs, with no ranting attached.
What I had proposed was that upon inspecting a player, it would show you the stats they have for whatever instance they are in or you are queued for. For example, say you are queued for CN and you inspect them, it would then show something akin to this: (I made up these numbers)
Stats for player HAMSTER in CN:
Number of times completed: 100
Number of times entered: 120
Optional by choice of said player allowing people to see:
GS
Number of alts
Assuming you in CN, then it would show you the stats for only CN when someone random joins. With those first 2 numbers someone can make a much more accurate judgement on how well a player will perform then by using their GS. This is because say they have 10 chars and they playing on a new alt, whilst It will show 0 times entered and completed, by revealing the number of alts, it indicates to players that they have experience on another Char. Also if the number of times entered is much higher then the number of times completed, it probably indicates either a poor player or one who isn't willing to stick around for a team.
Wouldn't fix a thing. You'd then have well geared newer players locked out of content because they haven't completed the content before. I've seen it before in other games where the tell would be for "lfg x, link achievement" if you don't have the achievement for already beating it, you don't get to run it.
I did propose a better suggestion then gs, with no ranting attached.
What I had proposed was that upon inspecting a player, it would show you the stats they have for whatever instance they are in or you are queued for. For example, say you are queued for CN and you inspect them, it would then show something akin to this: (I made up these numbers)
Stats for player HAMSTER in CN:
Number of times completed: 100
Number of times entered: 120
Optional by choice of said player allowing people to see:
GS
Number of alts
Assuming you in CN, then it would show you the stats for only CN when someone random joins. With those first 2 numbers someone can make a much more accurate judgement on how well a player will perform then by using their GS. This is because say they have 10 chars and they playing on a new alt, whilst It will show 0 times entered and completed, by revealing the number of alts, it indicates to players that they have experience on another Char. Also if the number of times entered is much higher then the number of times completed, it probably indicates either a poor player or one who isn't willing to stick around for a team.
I personally would benefit A LOT from your suggestion. I am interested in seeing players' CN runs. I would love to have that feature added but I just don't think that for Cryptic's intended audience, they would be able to easily apply those stats. I think it *could* be a bonus, but there needs to be a clean and simple comparator. Sometimes, players don't want to roll over every single enchant and add them up manually.
I also think there is a little flaw (other than it isn't as streamlined and clean as a simple Gearscore number), it doesn't exactly depict the current state of that toon's gear and gear has tons to do with performance. There is no reliable "skill" meter. Does the person with 100 completed CN runs better than the player with 80 completed CN runs? Not really. Alts also poses a very big problem just because of class differences, mules and leadership. As for the other stuff, I think it is becoming a privacy issue that many players do not wish to share.
Lastly, gearscore is also a big e-peen function which incentives players to progress upwards and also track their progression as well as enable simple comparisons. Completions of Castle Never does server some of the same purposes, but it doesn't really help with Cyptic's agenda of seducing players to "buy" stuff.
Your suggestion is indeed beneficial and can flesh out the story behind a toon. However, most players will go for the easiest and cleanest way (which frankly I think is effective enough). So then everyone reverts to using gearscore primarily despite the bevy of options and we're back to square one.
How about just getting rid of the GS NUMBER, and if you want to see a character's gear, you have to actually spend more than 2 seconds inspecting the character to look at gear sets, enchants, etc., and not go by one single number which doesn't even actually measure the entirety of the player's gear?
Well I admit that gearscore isn't perfect. Its far from perfect. But it is very reliable in predicting a player's potential effectiveness. The number is an easy way for players to identify and inspect others plus it is an easy variable to use for content-gating and for the reasons I mentioned above.
I did propose a better suggestion then gs, with no ranting attached.
What I had proposed was that upon inspecting a player, it would show you the stats they have for whatever instance they are in or you are queued for. For example, say you are queued for CN and you inspect them, it would then show something akin to this: (I made up these numbers)
Stats for player HAMSTER in CN:
Number of times completed: 100
Number of times entered: 120
Optional by choice of said player allowing people to see:
GS
Number of alts
Assuming you in CN, then it would show you the stats for only CN when someone random joins. With those first 2 numbers someone can make a much more accurate judgement on how well a player will perform then by using their GS. This is because say they have 10 chars and they playing on a new alt, whilst It will show 0 times entered and completed, by revealing the number of alts, it indicates to players that they have experience on another Char. Also if the number of times entered is much higher then the number of times completed, it probably indicates either a poor player or one who isn't willing to stick around for a team.
Could be interesting as long as you recognise that previous entries won't count. So for the hundred of CN runs I've done won't show up, and unlikely to do many again considering how much it has devalued. Plus I suggest that if that were to be implemented, that it wouldn't count as an entry if you've been in for less than 5 mins. Otherwise who would pug? Though either way it could end up with elitism in forming groups.
I agree that any way they do it, the elitists would find a way to be elitist about it. So I feel it is fine the way it is. GS allows you to get a quick picture of how effective a person most likely will be. It's obviously only part of the picture, but it is a starting point to understanding your group.
I agree that any way they do it, the elitists would find a way to be elitist about it. So I feel it is fine the way it is. GS allows you to get a quick picture of how effective a person most likely will be. It's obviously only part of the picture, but it is a starting point to understanding your group.
It's very true on what wild just said. But, sometimes it's not fair. Whatever you do, elisitist will remain elisitist, we can not deny that fact. However, it's a stressful competition. People who looking for 15k + don't take 14k because of their GS purely, but some people have better experience and approach differently. I personally got declined and I had perfect vorpal on my CW. I out DPS high level GS'd folks due to my skill rotations and the build set up. Now... I understand that it's not always the case where people being GS maniacs or can out dps someone while under scored. But, it's just sad sometimes.. I feel sorry for those new comers. Without spending any money in this game, coming up from 8k to 15k is hell a lot of work.
All in all.. NW has already trained people to be picky and many players look for the speed run now days. Better gear = faster completion in NW. I don't know if anything will change even after removing GS.
I agree that any way they do it, the elitists would find a way to be elitist about it. So I feel it is fine the way it is. GS allows you to get a quick picture of how effective a person most likely will be. It's obviously only part of the picture, but it is a starting point to understanding your group.
There will always be elitism. I wouldn't take away gearscore and all the functions it does just because of that.
It's very true on what wild just said. But, sometimes it's not fair. Whatever you do, elisitist will remain elisitist, we can not deny that fact. However, it's a stressful competition. People who looking for 15k + don't take 14k because of their GS purely, but some people have better experience and approach differently. I personally got declined and I had perfect vorpal on my CW. I out DPS high level GS'd folks due to my skill rotations and the build set up. Now... I understand that it's not always the case where people being GS maniacs or can out dps someone while under scored. But, it's just sad sometimes.. I feel sorry for those new comers. Without spending any money in this game, coming up from 8k to 15k is hell a lot of work.
All in all.. NW has already trained people to be picky and many players look for the speed run now days. Better gear = faster completion in NW. I don't know if anything will change even after removing GS.
Make it so that if it's epic or higher it's btcoa. Then speed runs have no more point. The elimination of speed runs will decrease a lot of gs craziness. Not destroy unfortunately, but decrease it.
No thanks Jeff. It's fine as it is. Gives a general/vague idea about the performance of someone.
Something that's too bad is this powercreep, we have 26K people running around, I'm almost starting to feel like a peasant at ~20K.
I remember when 14K was the sh*t back then. Now it's considered scrub level... lol.
I honestly wish boons, artifacts and the like were never introduced.
The problem isn't the powercreep per se. The problem is that no new content has been introduced where the mobs and dungeon were creeped up by the same amount. This means that everything is now easier rather than only old content being easier.
The problem isn't the powercreep per se. The problem is that no new content has been introduced where the mobs and dungeon were creeped up by the same amount. This means that everything is now easier rather than only old content being easier.
I agree with you . . . my 15k cw kills things faster in WOD than my 21k temp SW!
I also agree that GS is not the problem and admittedly I do get a little frustrated when I see people entering Tiamat with out a soul forge enchant weapon enchant and only one artifact and that being the whole realms cat. People need to take the time to educate there selves on the mechanics of the content fights and there class's unfortunately this game does not incur age that sort of interest in more than 5% of there player base. the other problem is that its too easy for people to spend real $$ to power level there artifacts and boost there GS.
Comments
Yes, education, hard work, and time invested in a career do tend to separate the successful from the slackers.
But here's the thing: Gear Score is a very bad measure of these things in this game. As noted in my original post, a person who achieved gear by grinding dungeons and learning their character, and a person who spent 5 minutes buying gear from the AH, can have exactly the same GS. It won't differentiate between the two.
In that sense, in analogy with a person's career, GS is like a person's age. Yes an older person will tend to have more experience in the workforce, a better career, a higher income, etc., etc., then a younger person. But that is not at all guaranteed to be the case, and age is not a good indicator of that. There's plenty of deadbeat adults too.
And will you people please stop with this nonsense about "only bad players want GS to be gone". There have been quite a few geared and good players commenting in this thread who also agree that GS is either flawed, toxic, or both, and should go. There are good valid reasons for wanting GS to go other than pure self-interest.
I also played Tera, which went F2P quite a while ago.
After the game went free, everything turned into iLvl HAMSTER. The requirements for getting into a party are usually well above what's needed to complete the dungeon. The dungeon may have an iLvl requirement of 140 but if you're lower than 170, you're getting kicked. To put this into perspective, getting 30 extra iLvls is pretty **** expensive and very time consuming, the equivalent of going from 15-20k GS in NW.
Back into NW, GS is even worse than Tera. Even GWD parties are requiring 15k+ GS to queue for them. Not to mention, people hold their GS equivalent to skill, which isn't the case. At least from the PvP threads crying about TRs, there are tons of 20k+ players out there who play with the skill of a 4k GS. The GS stat should be left in place but it should be invisible to spectate or inspect.
I use it as a measurement of how far my equips are progressing. It shouldn't be used to discriminate based on false weight.
Go Cryptic!
PS - I quit.
(Sin)cerely
Kain
Same GS but calculated using the Diminished return functions (https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3dqpvhuavj), so more balanced builds will give more and 6k recovery / crit will give much much less than 4k power + 2k recovery/crit
That is interesting. However you do have have have some consideration over stats. Do control bonus and stamina gain count, after all a HR speccing into such stats for example may equally be gs HAMSTER if it gave more than power and hp. If it didn't give more than hp and power than they'd be more effective since they don't have diminishing returns. For a CW, you may not want a deflection stat, but to gs ***** that may entice you to do so anyway. So there are still some things to think about which may end up having similar problems. Plus you can just buy it all out, however it's probably fairly hard to have an accurate skill score. Would it even be worth it? You'd still have people judging and hence it's still peoples attitudes that need to change.
How would that change anything. Those that had it on blocked would just be treated as the leper at that point.
-Did u kill him?
-With my right i refuse to answer this question.
*clap clap clap*
Next smart idea?
@micky(Jannie)
So more likly somthing based on all %-tage income we have? But multiplied by 100 and sumbited as number? (well would end around 500-1k give or take) But problem is, diffrent stat has diffrent soft caps (basicly its mutipled for somthing around 780(CA), like ~1460 for regen or ls, and 2540 for crit/arpen, etc), so it affect %-tage income, (8% roso CA, ~14% regen, ~26% crit etc, and ofc "endless" dmg from powah). It also may be quite unfair if we would compare difrent clases based on difrent must-have stats.
(Sin)cerely
Kain
I don't think the mass intended audience would want/care to see that. They need a simple number and a simple raid.
It was funny today I got accused of being a "whiney 23K GS" in PvP when I am only around 16K on my main. I guess my character needs a new bra.
Those in the know never judge by GS alone.
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
Congrats for that analogy. #winstheinternet
they should add a log of what and how many monsters we kill, would be cool. they have that in runescape
I mean, gearscore is the cleanest method Cryptic has to serve its intended audience in providing an option to at least give an idea on the potential effectiveness of a player.
I haven't seen a better suggestion, only rants about how a few people where treated poorly. If there is a better option, I'm all for it.
This is why I vote to keep it.
I voted to keep it too, and almost all of my characters are "low GS." Only one of them is 13k almost 14 now. But he's the one I play the most and lots of people would probably still say he is low GS.
I think the issue here is how people are using the number, not the number itself. You say it's intent is to serve the players as a way to gauge the potential effectiveness of other players, but I don't think this was the intent at all. That's just how people have chosen to use the number. I think it was meant mostly to give you a goal to strive for and a way to see progress towards that goal. Also, it's a good way to separate content into tiers based on some basic stats so you aren't getting one shot by things all the time because you're in Castle Never with a piece of level 59 quest gear as your chest piece. Now, granted, that last one can still happen. Clearly, the system isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. Removing it entirely is a bad idea.
But the system isn't the problem here; the problem, as usual, is the people.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
I did propose a better suggestion then gs, with no ranting attached.
What I had proposed was that upon inspecting a player, it would show you the stats they have for whatever instance they are in or you are queued for. For example, say you are queued for CN and you inspect them, it would then show something akin to this: (I made up these numbers)
Stats for player HAMSTER in CN:
Number of times completed: 100
Number of times entered: 120
Optional by choice of said player allowing people to see:
GS
Number of alts
Assuming you in CN, then it would show you the stats for only CN when someone random joins. With those first 2 numbers someone can make a much more accurate judgement on how well a player will perform then by using their GS. This is because say they have 10 chars and they playing on a new alt, whilst It will show 0 times entered and completed, by revealing the number of alts, it indicates to players that they have experience on another Char. Also if the number of times entered is much higher then the number of times completed, it probably indicates either a poor player or one who isn't willing to stick around for a team.
How about just getting rid of the GS NUMBER, and if you want to see a character's gear, you have to actually spend more than 2 seconds inspecting the character to look at gear sets, enchants, etc., and not go by one single number which doesn't even actually measure the entirety of the player's gear?
Wouldn't fix a thing. You'd then have well geared newer players locked out of content because they haven't completed the content before. I've seen it before in other games where the tell would be for "lfg x, link achievement" if you don't have the achievement for already beating it, you don't get to run it.
I personally would benefit A LOT from your suggestion. I am interested in seeing players' CN runs. I would love to have that feature added but I just don't think that for Cryptic's intended audience, they would be able to easily apply those stats. I think it *could* be a bonus, but there needs to be a clean and simple comparator. Sometimes, players don't want to roll over every single enchant and add them up manually.
I also think there is a little flaw (other than it isn't as streamlined and clean as a simple Gearscore number), it doesn't exactly depict the current state of that toon's gear and gear has tons to do with performance. There is no reliable "skill" meter. Does the person with 100 completed CN runs better than the player with 80 completed CN runs? Not really. Alts also poses a very big problem just because of class differences, mules and leadership. As for the other stuff, I think it is becoming a privacy issue that many players do not wish to share.
Lastly, gearscore is also a big e-peen function which incentives players to progress upwards and also track their progression as well as enable simple comparisons. Completions of Castle Never does server some of the same purposes, but it doesn't really help with Cyptic's agenda of seducing players to "buy" stuff.
Your suggestion is indeed beneficial and can flesh out the story behind a toon. However, most players will go for the easiest and cleanest way (which frankly I think is effective enough). So then everyone reverts to using gearscore primarily despite the bevy of options and we're back to square one.
Well I admit that gearscore isn't perfect. Its far from perfect. But it is very reliable in predicting a player's potential effectiveness. The number is an easy way for players to identify and inspect others plus it is an easy variable to use for content-gating and for the reasons I mentioned above.
Could be interesting as long as you recognise that previous entries won't count. So for the hundred of CN runs I've done won't show up, and unlikely to do many again considering how much it has devalued. Plus I suggest that if that were to be implemented, that it wouldn't count as an entry if you've been in for less than 5 mins. Otherwise who would pug? Though either way it could end up with elitism in forming groups.
It's very true on what wild just said. But, sometimes it's not fair. Whatever you do, elisitist will remain elisitist, we can not deny that fact. However, it's a stressful competition. People who looking for 15k + don't take 14k because of their GS purely, but some people have better experience and approach differently. I personally got declined and I had perfect vorpal on my CW. I out DPS high level GS'd folks due to my skill rotations and the build set up. Now... I understand that it's not always the case where people being GS maniacs or can out dps someone while under scored. But, it's just sad sometimes.. I feel sorry for those new comers. Without spending any money in this game, coming up from 8k to 15k is hell a lot of work.
All in all.. NW has already trained people to be picky and many players look for the speed run now days. Better gear = faster completion in NW. I don't know if anything will change even after removing GS.
There will always be elitism. I wouldn't take away gearscore and all the functions it does just because of that.
Make it so that if it's epic or higher it's btcoa. Then speed runs have no more point. The elimination of speed runs will decrease a lot of gs craziness. Not destroy unfortunately, but decrease it.
Something that's too bad is this powercreep, we have 26K people running around, I'm almost starting to feel like a peasant at ~20K.
I remember when 14K was the sh*t back then. Now it's considered scrub level... lol.
I honestly wish boons, artifacts and the like were never introduced.
One of the many Control Wizards that misses Shard Of The Endless Avalanche. RIP Shard (Beta-Mod3)
The problem isn't the powercreep per se. The problem is that no new content has been introduced where the mobs and dungeon were creeped up by the same amount. This means that everything is now easier rather than only old content being easier.
I agree with you . . . my 15k cw kills things faster in WOD than my 21k temp SW!
I also agree that GS is not the problem and admittedly I do get a little frustrated when I see people entering Tiamat with out a soul forge enchant weapon enchant and only one artifact and that being the whole realms cat. People need to take the time to educate there selves on the mechanics of the content fights and there class's unfortunately this game does not incur age that sort of interest in more than 5% of there player base. the other problem is that its too easy for people to spend real $$ to power level there artifacts and boost there GS.