I have to agree that having specialized pvp stats only available on pvp gear creates a barrier for players between pvp and pve and due to time investment required for obtaining the gear your limiting the number of people that will participate in either as they begin to feel less competitive with others in those areas. I agree that pvp gear should be in the game, but it should not have pvp specific stats- and should be comparable to pve gear.
Psychopathy mentioned pvp gear being harder to get- that is not a good reason to make pvp gear better- that's a reason to make pve gear harder to get or pvp gear easier to get. If they are comparable to one another stat wise then they should be comparable in difficulty to obtain. Neither should be better at pvp or pve however.
As for battleground- I am actually wondering what they really add to the game overall. If your looking for a way to award the “pvp gear set†then there are better ways to go about that. The problem I have with battlegrounds (even if you have to go to the battleground first to que up) is that it creates large pockets of non-interaction. Players will que up then stand in the nearest outpost or behind guards until the que pops then repeat. For pve servers this is less of an issue as it doesn’t hinder the player world as drastically but its still a negative impact on the overall game world. And no your not forced to do this when your qued up, but the chance of it popping up while your out doing something makes a lot of people feel like they can't really do anything ells while they wait.
Ok, so let me try another angle, Battlegrounds usually attempt to do a few things,
1: reward pvp,
2: let pve servers have more pvp options besides just duels and arena,
3: add new game play experiences to the game.
Problems battlegrounds create:
1: creates large non-interaction player pockets,
2: the process of queing for battlegrounds makes many players feel like they can't do anything but idle while waiting on the que, OR will become conditioned to only seek pvp through BGs and avoid world-pvp (non issue on pve servers)
3: pulls players from the rest of the game world making zones more vacant,
4: numbers 1 and 3 lower the sense of community and downplay the mmo- aspect of the game.
Something that would also do all the good things battlegrounds do but won't create large player non-interaction pockets is local objective based pvp tasks. Like small frequently occurring zone events that encourage pvp.
Problems this system will have to address:
1: Low player interactions can make these events much less interesting. (this is also a problem battlegrounds have)
2: Determine how to reward player interaction w/o encouraging body camping,
3: How to balance power between players between zone instances,
4: How to determine participation and non participation between players questing and those doing the event,
5: Teaching players about the events as to avoid confusion and let them get the most out of the events quickly.
My example suggestion would be 2 events that can occur, one leading up to the other. With the infrastructure for world events already in place (at least I think it is) these shouldn't be to hard.
1st event: zone text comes up from one of the gods such as “ my sacred treasures have been lost- please adventurer retrieve them and ye shall be rewarded†(or something) followed up by a different god “Adventurers, Bring the treasures to me and I shall reward you for your efforts†(or something). Lets say the treasures are orbs scattered around the area- you can carry one at a time, picking one up and people can attack you- you drop the orb where you die. You may go up to a shrine for one of the gods to offer up your services for the event- doing so will mark the location of the treasures on your map- but you can be freely attacked by players who are vowed to the other god for the event. Killing players vowed for the event earn you rewards, and bringing one of the treasures back to the shrine also net everyone on your team some reward + a bonus to the person that carried it back. Vowing to a god will also let you see the number of players vowed to each side- sides with fewer players receive a % boost to all rewards as they happen (not a big boost but enough to encourage even teams over winning the round). You could also inform new players by having call outs from the gods if one team is more populated letting new players know they will get more rewards for joining said team. At the end of the round players are rewarded a bonus for completion. If multiple instances of the zone when you vow to one of the shrines it will move you to the instance the event is occurring in, but zone announcements will happen in all instances. This event should occur more often then the second event example.
2nd event:zone text comes up from one of the gods such as “(other gods name) you have tarnished my sacred lands long enough! Adventurers I call on you all to destroy (other gods name)!†(or something) other god replies “You think you can destroy me?! How foolish do you think these Hero's are (other gods name)? Hero come to my aid and you shall be rewarded†(or something). The Shrine for the defending god will have a manifestation of the god appear. You can vow to him and defend or the other shrine to be on the attacking side. The stats of the manifestation are determined by the number of players participating and the team sizes. More players on the attacking side and the defending god may manifest 2 guardian spirits as well. More players on the defending side and the attacking team may get a blessing boosting damage they do to the other gods team or may get some npc spirits who join the attack. The event ends when the defending god is vanquished or a set time expires. Rewards are balanced like in the previous event.
Rewards would likely be some form of pvp tokens, xp and currency. Rewards have to be acceptable even if only one person is taking part in the event but have the potential to be much better if you have more people.
Another thing probably worth mentioning although not specifically tied to this system is introducing an alternative way to acquire the “pvp gear†would probably be good especially if they are equivalent to the pve gear. Something like a sacred lake you could toss equipment into (akin to the Legend of Zelda – A link to the past : the waterfall of wishing)- and get back new equipment which if the right item level has the potential to be the pvp set- just limit the number of times you can do this a day to once, and have all equipment BoP when it comes out maybe.
Those are just some examples though, you could do any number of things as well instead of the traditional battlegrounds.
I would also like to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with battlegrounds but I don't think they work in favor of the massive multilayer aspect of mmos, and I think an alternative solution would be better for TERA overall.
PvE gear should always be > than PvP gear or at least equivalent. Using WoW as an example, a person decked out in all Tier 3 at the end of Vanilla with KJ weapon should push your [filtered] in, I don't care if you PvP in BGs over and over to get your conveyor belt epics.
What ruined pvp in WoW was welfare epics and resilience gear. I don't want to see that in TERA.
There is nothing wrong with BGs, as they put an objective behind PvP in a way that only they can do. When push comes to shove, GvG will simply be a deathmatch situation. BGs present objectives that are meaningful, and expand the PvP experience beyond "zug zug I kill u".
The moment that PvP gear becomes the staplemark gearset for PvP, is when the community gets completely separated and cliquey. I would be fine with there being no PVP gear at all, or a voucher from PvP exploits to obtain equivalent PvE gear.
I think that cross-server BGs destroy OWPVP.
Having battlegrounds where people within your world queue up and fight in CTF or Waypoint type battles is just a different flavor of PvP, and more is usually better.
Meeting someone in OWPVP that is an esteemed BG player, will motivate you to seek him/her out and show him/her what for. When it merges servers, that personal aspect is gone and essentially you are playing against phantoms.
Intra-server BGs with a similar reward system to OWPVP would not degrade anything.
I've said it in all the threads about BG's on the PvP forums. Reward driven BG's will kill OW PvP. Its to convenient. All you have to do is queue up and you will get instant small scale PvP action. When people start to see there efforts in the OW are not paying off, even the people that enjoy OW PvP are going to hit that button to queue, because they want there gear as well. OW PvPers being forced to BG, is not the way to go about it.
Just like BGers would throw a fit if the only way to gain gear points/tokens was through killing people in the OW. When the situation is flipped it doesn't sound so appealing does it? This is the position OW PvPers are in right now.
Solution:
Make PvP tokens/points only received in the SvS system they plan on implementing. BG's is a selfish system. OW PvP is a selfish system. The only person either of these styles of PvP benefit is yourself. SvS can be a selfish system, but in the end whatever your reasons, you showing up and participating in the SvS system is benefiting your server as well.
That single reason alone should be why SvS is the only form of PvP that gives rewards.