PvP Woes and How to Fix It

My initial foray into MMO PvP began with World of Warcraft over seven years ago.  At that impressionable age of 21, I was handed a copy of the game by my boss at the game development studio I was working at as a co-op during college.  Initially playing a Human Priest named Ninthcircle at the request of my boss in exchange for a free copy of the game (the class being the request and not the ridiculous name) I immediately had my expectations of what MMO PvP could be shattered.  Prior to ever setting foot in Warsong Gulch or waiting for the Tauren Shaman named Uenaydar to come 1-shot me with a Windfury proc in front of Stromgarde Keep in the Arathi Highlands, my limited understanding of what MMO PvP could bring to the table was that it would be clunky and nowhere near the responsiveness I was accustomed to being a sponsored Unreal Tournament player.  Quickly, however, I realized the error of my assessment and my world was expanded to include MMO PvP under the banner of competitive and skill-based gaming.

Fast forward roughly seven years to February 2011.  My time in WoW had more than run its course and Rift had launched both smoothly and successfully.  Now a Defiant Rogue named Synovia, I began plotting my Warfront domination plans.  Much to my dismay, this plan never really came to fruition as it quickly screeched to an abrupt halt by what I considered then and still consider now, to be one of the worst grinds I've ever done in any game.  I am of course referring to the gear grind in Rift PvP.

During my WoW days, I used to complain about the amount of time it took to obtain enough gear to be "competitive" in Battlegrounds.  In retrospect, the time investment required in Rift to obtain said gear makes the same grind in WoW look like a proverbial walk in the park.  In WoW I could spend a week or two taking my lumps in Battlegrounds and showing up to the occasional Astranaar raid to then find myself fully decked out in gear that at least makes me "competitive".  In Rift, the same cannot be said.  I've had many argue against me on this point but, quite frankly, the math isn't on your side.  That said, let's define what I mean by "competitive" in the sense of PvP gear.  At present, I would consider "competitive" to be having your character completely decked out in, at minimum, the middle tier of gear.  For Defiant Rogues, this is the Vigilante's set.  The set prior to this one is the Seditionist's set and Rift employs a system wherein you must trade in the previous tier's item along with a chunk of favor to obtain the upgraded, next-tier version.  Here's what you're looking at in terms of favor:

• Helm:  20800 + 54400 = 75200
• Shoulders:  20800 + 54400 = 75200
• Chest:  27200 + 68800 = 96000
• Belt:  16000 + 40000 = 56000
• Legs:  27200 + 68800 = 96000
• Feet:  16000 + 40000 = 56000
• Neck:  19200 + 48000 = 67200
• Ring:  12800 + 12800 + 32000 + 32000 = 89600

With the above list alone, I can illustrate my point beautifully and I'll even exclude MH weapon, OH weapon, ranged weapon, trinket and an entire core which, in and of themselves, are at least 500,000 favor combined to acquire.

Continuing on, we're looking at a price tag of 611200.  I want that number to sink in for a moment.  Let it really sink in deep.  Now, I want you to consider the following:  this weekend was a bonus weekend for Port Scion.  To take full advantage of this opportunity, I went Saboteur in attempt to maximize my potential favor gains.  This weekend, on a bonus weekend in Port Scion, I averaged roughly 5000-6000 favor per game when we won and a little over half that when we lost.  However, let's not even consider losses.  Heck, I'll even take the upper bound of my example and assume I made 6000 favor every single game.  Each game took between 10-40 minutes to complete, depending on how the game was being played.  That said, let's take a nice, round 30 minutes per game, and ignore any time in queue.  This yields the following calculation:

611200 / 6000 = 101.866.

Don't worry, I'll even round down for you:

101 * 30 = 3030 minutes

3030 / 60 = 50.5 hours

So assuming absolutely optimal favor gains (unless you are fortunate enough to still have a favor vial or three at your disposal, despite the fact that my several concessions herein would more or less negate the benefit) based on it being a bonus weekend and you winning every single match, no queues, not including any weapons, trinkets and also not including a PvP core of any form, you are looking at a bare minimum of 50.5 hours of time in-game before you will reach a level of gear that I am being extremely generous in calling "competitive".

How often do you play?  For the sake of argument, let's assume you play a couple hours every single day of the week.

50.5 / 2 = 25.25 days until you can be even remotely competitive.

But Synovia!  You're forgetting about the bolstering system!  The bolstering system buffs your stats until you reach a certain level of prestige!  Actually, that's not entirely true.  The bolstering system monitors your character's stats and will turn off after you pass a certain threshold.  This means that if you roll into a Warfront in PvE gear because you haven't yet put in a full 50+ hours to get the PvP gear to be competitive, you will not receive Ascended Courage.  So should we then purposely gimp ourselves until we've put in those 50+ hours?  Is it ideal to get your proverbial shit pushed in for 50+ hours of game time so you can experience the "fun" of Rift PvP?

Absolutely not and, quite frankly, the current system is unnacceptable.  I've said this quite a few times on the forum and I'm going to say it once more here:.

The gear to be competitive in PvP should NEVER be the reward for one's efforts.  The gear to be competitive should be trivial to obtain and the reward for one's efforts should be titles, mounts, pets, dyes, costumes or any other intangible that doesn't directly affect the competitiveness of Rift PvP in a substantial way.

So how do we fix Rift PvP?  Well, there is certainly more wrong with it than what this blog post explains.  There are class balance issues (such as that 11K health Warrior who won't die, has the mobility of a Feynman Diagram and is shitting on your entire team while out-damaging the supposedly overpowered Saboteurs).  There are also some issues with the game's engine itself in that the fluidity and responsiveness of Rift PvP combat isn't yet on par with that of WoW or even Aion.  However, we have to start at the root of the problem and I believe my sentiment herein to be precisely that.  I would therefore propose the following:

1. Use two tiers of PvP gear instead of three and keep the "trade-up" system in place wherein you trade the lesser item and some favor for an upgraded one 
2. Make the first tier of PvP gear obtainable in two week's casual play time (a couple hours a night) or less but keep the upgraded tier at a costly level to still provide a "grind" for those who, for some ridiculous reason, actually want it.  Ensure that the "upgraded" items are only slight improvements over their predecessors.
3. Offer titles, mounts, pets, dyes, costumes, visual weapon effects, fun PvP fluff items (i.e. Flag of Ownership from WoW - it was a lot of fun killing someone and slamming a "Flag of Ownership" into their corpse) and perhaps small upgrades such as PvP runes and PvP weapon enchantments as the "grindable" rewards for PvP
4. Make Unseen (and the Guardian equivalent) reputation obtainable in Warfronts.  I didn't touch on this particular pain point in this article but it's desperately needed.

Future considerations for Rift PvP, beyond Conquest, would be the following:

• Offer a Rift version of WoW's "Rated Battlegrounds" in that anyone who has achieved maximum prestige rank may queue into rated versions of Warfronts against other maximum prestige rank players.  Offer unique rewards for participation in this.
• PvP Rifts, which were a great thought, need an overhaul to make them worthwhile.  Increase favor and reputation gains therein and shorten the running distance to sourcestone drop-offs a bit so you aren't running across Ember Isle on foot to drop off a piece of sourcestone for 5 (yes, five) Unseen reputation and 125 (lol) favor.