The case for gear to provide more than 40-50% of a characters power.
A couple things before I begin:
1) I like the fact that there are paths for people that want to increase their characters power through affiliations, the variety of consumables that could be crafted/purchased as well as ingame properties like ships FHs etc etc. It makes this mmo have more depth. It's not just "Lv up, get pvp gear, fight in a BG and win"
2) Some of my best pvp moments was when either alone I'd beat higher and better equipped players, or with my friends, or I'd watch my friends beat higher level players with better gear. But it is the nature of the mmo that this should happen rarely.
3) Try not to mix up the meanings of character development/progress, natural skill in conflict, and stats modifying factors (armor, weapon, gear set bonuses)
I want to make the case so that a player with a Lv40 sword should never lose against a player with a Lv35 sword --- Just as higher level players will always beat lower level players, so it should be that people that have managed to get their hands on better gear will (most of the time) beat people equal in all aspects except for gear power---
I want to make the case for gear to affect the stats in such a significant way that PKrs as well as organized groups/guilds dont try to bypass the main PK deterrent which is the loss of gear.
A quick recap on the difference between PK count and corruption points:
PK count is the number of green players you have killed. The higher the PK count the higher the corruption points you accumulate per new kill (which you need to burn off to become green again). And if you PK count goes past a number of kills, which I am not sure if it has been determined yet (in L2 3 PKs were safe) then you will drop hard earned gear upon death.
The amount of corruption points you gain depends on other factors, as well as the rate at which you burn them off.
I return to the scenario of PKrs or organized hit squads that want to avoid the main risk of losing valuable gear for as long as possible before they have to redeem themselves. Such individuals or groups may count on the fact that (not necesseraly trash) gear accounting for only 40-50% of a characters power, may take advantage of it and use items that can be easily replaced. The absence of fear that you could lose the instruments with which you can achieve victory (gear) will make such scenarios more frequent.
It doesn't take much for a player to spec into an aggressive playstyle with cheap gear and eliminate opposition without the chance for a counter attack.
The case is even more serious for organized groups that may create hit squads behind the main pvp group, compromised entirely of aggressive classes, equipped with cheap gear, whose aim is to take out as many enemies as possible, without the fear of losing anything during the conflict if they die as red.
This will lead to a meta of nuking the enemy and moving on with your day without risking your proper gear, especially since there will be gear loadouts in which swapping gear will be made easy (cause we are use to if from mmos with PvE gear, PvP gear, overland questing gear, raiding gear, tanking gear, dpsing gear etc etc etc).
Imagine if all the big guilds were equipped with cheap gear, counted on the fact that their attack power would still be effective, took out the opposition in every encounter with focused nuking and then moved on, cleared the corruption points, returned to non-combatant and swapped back to their proper gear, ready to repel an attack.
Not sure how much the stat reduction penalty can help when the enemy is determined to kill you before you know that a fight will start, having no fear of losing the cheap gear and I am not sure that we need a system to moderate player behaviour. But I can see the meta happening and I wanna bring it up for discussion.
As I have said above, I liked the times when I defeated people, I am not making the case for gear to be the only factor that determines victory. Skilled players will still overcome adversities, as it's proven time and time again.
But this is an mmo and there is more to it than "1v1 me bro, see who's better". There needs to be consideration for the overall health of the game.
For those who played L2 and enjoyed c2, c3, c4, c5 (in other words, the full spectrum of the game and it's character levels) knew how annoying cheap gear was, like karmian, plated leather, eminence bow, dark screamer, homunculus sword at the hands of a player with a class aimed just at PKing.
