It's time to get rid of Gear Score

gimpocalypse

I voted for "Streamline the GS system so it actually means something and people are the problem"

Sadly if if that were to happen... people will still be the problem.

urlord283

GS is a mesure of progress cause after lev 60 there is none

Is it perfect... no

But

It is an indication

in december I was 15K+ Today I am 17K+ next moth I will be 18K+... but still lev 60

Urlord

viperwitch23

Great point you made. It reminds me how I got on ignores by like 30+ people cuz of Tiamat losses who slandered my ''gear score'' of 16500 as beeing too low for the job. Yes I have set some stats to get better gear score because in guild was a limit of 15000 gear score to do epic dungeons so I needed the gear score to get in. Half due to it half due to bad advice and now heading for an expecive respect.
But I have a question to you.
Replacement for gear score might be soon judged badly too. I am wary of changes. Sometime a change could lead to worse outcome. But I be positive and see what happens:)
Regards
Kelly From Hell

pointsman wrote: »

TL;DR: Gear Score is an abused number that often leads to prejudice and bigotry against those who have a low GS number. It should be removed from the game, and players ought to be judged based on their competence, not their Gear Score.

Rationale:

First, it is important to understand what GS measures.

GS is simply the sum total of all of the stat points on your gear (except for HP; the HP number is divided by 4 before being included in the GS number).

So GS measures the stats on a person's gear. But it is a broken measure of even that, because GS also includes contributions that are not related to gear, and does not include all of the stats from gear.

For instance, some racial traits, such as the Human "Versatile Defense" trait, is included in GS, even though a racial trait is not gear.

Stats that come from companions are included in GS, even though companions can only loosely be regarded as "gear".

All classes have feats that boost GS. Every class has "Toughness" which boosts a character's GS by increasing a person's HP, and that boost to a character's HP is included in GS. Some classes have additional feats, such as GWF's Steely Defense, that boost GS by boosting a character's stat in a particular category. Furthermore, some of the characters' boons also are included in the GS calculation, even though boons and feats are independent of a character's gear.

What is NOT included in GS:

Armor and weapon enchantments are not included in GS. So a player that has a Perfect Vorpal and a player that has a Perfect Bronzewood are treated equivalently in terms of GS, even though for pretty much every class, a Perfect Vorpal is the better choice over a Perfect Bronzewood.

Some stats are not included in GS, such as Combat Advantage bonus or Incoming Healing bonus.

Abilities that are derived from a character's stat rolls (INT, CHA, CON, etc.) are not included in GS. So for instance, for a CW, the CW's INT score affects the character's recharge speed increase (RSI). The CW's Recovery stat ALSO affects the character's RSI. However, only the Recovery stat is included in the CW's GS, and NOT the CW's INT score. So a CW with an INT of 25 and Recovery of 3000 has about the same RSI as a CW with an INT of 20 and a Recovery of 4650. But the latter CW will have the higher GS, even though their RSI is the same.

Proper distribution of stats are not included in GS. A CW with Armor Penetration of 0 and Recovery of 6000, for instance, would be absurd. But that CW will have a higher GS than a CW with more balanced and appropriate stats, such as Armor Penetration of 2000 and Recovery of 3000. If you had a choice between having a CW on your team that had a GS of 16k (but with 0 ArPen and 6000 Recovery) and one that had a GS of 15k (but with 2000 ArPen and 3000 Recovery), which would you take? GS tells you that the former CW is the better choice, but that would be incorrect.

The problem is, that GS has become a proxy for a character's worth in a party, even though GS does not measure if the character has a good build, has the right feats, or even has balanced stats.

But because GS has become so pervasive as a tool for evaluating characters, it has led to players making dumb choices just to pad their GS so as to appear more superior than they actually are. For instance:

• using 2/2 sets when a 4pc set bonus would be more helpful for the party (e.g. High Vizier)
• using a T3 set, with more GS-boosting stats, when a T1 or T2 set would provide a better advantage for the party (e.g. High Prophet or Avatar of War)
• forsaking helpful stats that are not included in GS, such as Combat Advantage bonus, in favor of ones that boost GS but aren't as helpful to the party
• placing a lower priority on abilities derived from stat rolls in favor of granting those same abilities from gear, even though stat rolls are a far better away to achieve that ability than to attempt to do so with gear
• using companions that grant stats, instead of companions that can grant more useful abilities that do not however contribute to GS, such as control bonus or critical severity increase.

But the more pervasive problem with GS is that it is used to judge players unfairly. For a large segment of the population, a CW with a GS of 15k is considered prima facie to be a worse CW compared to a CW with a GS of 16k. Even though the 15k CW might have the correct balance of stats, while the 16k CW might have horrible stats and just padded GS. Most groups will likely take the 16k CW over the 15k CW judged solely on the basis of GS. Which is unfair to the 15k CW which did everything right, and just teaches the 15k CW that what he/she ought to do is just pad stats in order to be included in groups.

Some people - perhaps most - use GS as a measure to judge a player's commitment to the game, knowledge of the character's mechanics, or experience with the content. But gear can be purchased from the AH in a matter of minutes, and as noted above, a high GS does not in any way mean that the character has the correct feats, proper distribution of stats, or even knows what the gear is capable of (how to build buff/debuff stacks for instance).

This has become a real problem in raids like Tiamat, when players conclude that the reason for a failed raid is "low GS" by some members of the raid. There are even people who insist that a 15k GS should be a minimum, which is absurd - a DC wearing full High Prophet (T1) gear (the best gear for a debuff DC), all Mod 1/Mod 2 boons, and full Rank 7's will have a GS of around 14k. It is astounding to think that some players would want to exclude this 14k High Prophet DC from the raid in favor of a DC that has worse gear but padded stats, all in the name of having characters with bigger GS numbers "assist" them in victory in the raid.

At the extreme, some players use GS to harshly judge players with a low number, and accuse them of being leeches, parasites, idiots, or worse. This is just outright bigotry, but it is enabled by the "GS culture" that pervades this game, where the presumption is that high GS means better player.

This GS nonsense has got to stop, and the first way it can stop is by eliminating this single number from the game, and force players to evaluate characters based on the particular choices that the players have made in gearing them up. These choices are much more revealing at a player's competence in building and managing a character, than one single number, GS, which is a measure of gear alone, and a flawed measure of even that. So instead of evaluating a CW based on whether the GS number is higher, players will then have to evaluate characters based on whether they are wearing the proper gear and have chosen the proper enchantments, artifacts and ability scores.

But if there has to be one single number used by which to judge characters, it should NOT be a number that is based on GEAR! It ought to be based on contributions from the entirety of a character's build and experience, of which gear is just one part. Perhaps there can be a "score" assigned to different feats that are selected, depending on what the player has chosen (a score based on "DPS" can be used based on whether the player has chosen the DPS-boosting feats, as core based on "buffing" can be used based on whether the player has chosen the buff/debuffing feats, etc.)

lewstelamon01

As Gear Score is being eliminated for Module 6, I can reasonably say that this thread is now moot.