75-79 Bracket Blues-Hunter PvP Discussion-Hunter Forums-HuntsmansLodge.com

I only recently ran into this….phenomenon. I don't know if anybody here has noticed it but it seems to be slightly prevalent, and it reveals the rather schizophrenic nature of WoW, even if it only appears at a certain point in the game.

I joined a few 75-79 BGs lately, and noticed that quite a number of players in the 77-79 range were already running in Cataclysm gear, evident from their HP counts. It certainly makes life more miserable for the opposite faction players at levels 75-76, as I found we can be easily one-shotted for 16-20k damage when our HP totals only reach up to 16-18k. Not to mention trying to kill a Cata-geared player is like trying to solo a dungeon boss (my last BG had a DK that had 55k health and soloed 4 of us without batting an eyelid–I tried to CC her but she killed me faster than I can press a hotkey).

So I went to Google to learn about this new thing with Cata greened players in the 75-79 bracket. Almost instantly I was greeted with official Blizzard forum threads about the discrepancies.

It is amazing how much a game can reveal about people. Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame noted that he can learn much about a person by playing a game with that person. Of the two threads I have seen, the posters were divided into two distinct groups.

The first group consisted of the people that cried foul. They see the discrepancy with the gearing, the ridiculous one-sided matches and want Blizzard to either restrict Cataclysm gear to level , or create an iLvl restriction for the 75-79 bracket.

The other group were the “L2P elite pro gamer” squad (or close to it). They basically told the other group to shut up, grind to 77 and buy Cata greens from the AH.

Now, taking a few steps back, I see a few bigger problems here, ones that can't be solved by Blizzard through simple means. The real kicker, though, is that this problem only appears in ONE Battlegrounds bracket, and cannot be easily detected or quickly addressed–after all, why go to lengths to address an issue in a single bracket when there are bigger things at stake?

It is enough to tell me worlds about Blizzard's approach to the new content, however–one that would be TL;DR if I typed it here. In a nutshell, it has something to do with how hard it is to come up with content in a video game–believe me, I've been there and even the best and brightest get stumped at this one thing.

Basically, with the introduction of Cataclysm and the way gear was scaled up to the new content, the old equipment was rendered obsolete. That ICC gear you coveted? Forget it. Not gonna happen. I checked the new Cata greens in the Auction House and I was floored by the amount of HP and RAP they could give me if I bought and wore them (yes, I am a new Cata player. Remember, I started and quit during WotLK), versus WotLK purples and blues at the same level. But why this kind of scaling in the first place?

I might be wrong here–software engineering majors are free to correct me at this point–but I believe that in order to even out the new content from start to finish, Blizzard has to redo EVERY piece of unique fixed-stat equipment in the whole game, as well as the RNG which determines stats for randomly-enchanted items. That's a _LOT_ of work–they would basically have to go through their entire database, crunch numbers, run them repeatedly in the PTR to determine balancing issues, repeat ad infinitum, for the entire game's content, not just the new expansion.

This is why creating an iLvl restriction for the 75-79 bracket isn't going to be enough. One part of it is, after all, a pugged Battleground. If you lock out some players from that bracket, they will demand that they be given their own version of the same bracket for their iLvl, and that's going to cause a few issues in itself. Soon that sort of fix will trickle down into the lower echelons, and we'll begin to see players complaining about why there isn't an iLvl restriction for the 45-49 bracket, and so forth.

It also reveals to me the mean, bitter nature of many people when it comes to issues of fairness. Life isn't “balanced” or “fair” they say, so might as well hit back, screw the players who can't play. Go get your own Cata greens from the AH and hit them hard.

There's a bit of sense here. On the one hand they are saying “put up or shut up”. Get better or get bitter. Fine and good. That's how I went from faceroll-easy focus fire target to bearer of otherworldly vengeance against stealthers and clothies (well, sometimes). But on the other hand, who wants to play with a bunch of arrogant jerks around ruining your fun? If a person gains this mindset in the wrong spirit, soon he'll be spreading the phenomenon even more. He will be the one “pwning n00bz” with his overscaled gear, and in turn those “n00bz” will cry out more. Then he will be laughing out said “n00bz” and calling them “tools” for “QQing”.

Now, this is a small issue in the larger context. There are many more bugs and issues to address (including Hunter balancing issues and glitches *cough* *cough*). Lord willing I will log on later and get me a few Cata greens to help even the odds a bit. But I believe Blizzard is putting themselves into a difficult position like never before. The game is already 3 expansions strong and still going on its 7th year. It's practically a classic by old school standards. But the more they add to the game, the more baggage they have to end up dealing with. Game content is a very difficult proposition.

What do you guys think?