What Prevents players from debolstering?

[dansari]

Agreed, but that's not necessarily a debolster issue.. more of an NA population one. However, we had solid fights wb v wb last night and with more action and people leading, that should only start to get better. Overall, I think *if you know where to look for gear/you know what you're doing,* debolster isn't bad or unappealing.

[Sulorie]

When you don't skip midtier, then you already have all the debolster gear you need.

[dansari]

When you don't skip midtier, then you already have all the debolster gear you need.

Well that's true unless they came out with overlord/imperator after you already salvaged all your mid tier gear

[Richardwarhawk]

The Debolster system is really nice, I'm always going down to t3 to fight and help our fellow realies

[th3gatekeeper]

Starting this thread to open a discussion of what prevents people from being motivated to debolster. Its common to hear Devs trying to think of ideas to get people to debolster.

Personally I don't feel like debolstering because its conditions are too harsh to meet. You end up gimping yourself to a greater degree worse than players still in T3. If I could just pick a set of devastator gear and weapons and hop into T3 I would, but unfortunately thats not the case. You are essentially punished for wanting to participate in T3 when youre above the level bracket.

I felt this when leveling my White Lion, you put all that effort in getting the gear in T3 only to be unable to use it anymore in T3. Whats the point? If you can use certain gear in T3 you should be able to use it when you debolster.

Those are my reasons. I'd like to see what other peoples reasons are.

Going back to the OP... I personally dont feel like debolstering because its conditions are too clunky to be met.

When I log in, I want to do max tier stuff for gear. I want to run around in the lake, likely qued for SCs as well. So this is NORMALLY what I do. But lets say I get on and people want to debolster.

I have to run to the bank to grab my second set of all my equipment. I have to equip it all. Run to the renown trainer (because anywhere trainer BUGS for me) and respec my renown. Also the renown trainers are not the most reliable at telling you how many points youve spent, so I have to manually add up all the points to make sure I am under the renown cap.

I then have to remember to replace my mount on my bar (assuming I remember to get it from the bank as well - something I have forgetten before).

I then have a HIGH chance of forgetting something stupid, like the BL book, or a rink, or cape, and I feel like its always a 50-50 once i get into a zone whether I will chicken or not.

If all goes according to plan... GREAT! I spend a little time in RVRs - UNABLE to que for SCs at the same time - which means I run the risk of it not being as active or getting bored..

If ALL the conditions are met, and we flip a zone, Ill get some low tier gear ill never use... and some currency for some cool LOOKING gear that I will likely never use as well...

So I end up wondering why I worked so hard, and spend gold, and took time when I could have just run around T4 and done the same thing, without hassle, and ALSO qued for SCs as well.

Now... People gonna post and say "there are addons that help" blah blah... I get that but we shouldnt HAVE to download addons to do anything in this game. Maybe its just a difference in perspective or something as tons of former LIVE guys always brag about ALLLLL the addons they use. Some people like to keep things simple. For a LONG time I used to use almost zero addons except for buffhead and 1-2 more. Addons are great, and the fact we can use them is great, but even an addon (to remove barriers of entry) Is ITSELF a barrier to entry.

What we need is LESS barriers to entry, not more. Also, I would love to see the ability to que for SCs, while doing debolstered content.

I saw a comment in the DEV diary about having a new "system" where T2+ are all playing together? So maybe this will be moot in the future... but it sounded cool, or maybe I am mistaken.

Point being, anytime you have ANY barrier to entry, its going to cause people to not want to do it. Right now we have several:
- multiple gear sets
- gold cost
- time to respec (again - I know many who cant do renown via anywhere trainer)
- Risk of chicken for mis-clicking or not clicking an item = more time lost
- Semi-lack of rewards. (Not a bash on DEVs since I loved the reward program, but for some people and some classes they dont want these pieces).
- Cant SC while debolstered.

The biggest for me PERSONALLY:
1) multiple gear sets
2) Gold cost
3) Time to respec
4) cant SC while debolstered

[Sulorie]

Respec and changing gear takes less than 5 min and is just a matter of organizing.
Gold becomes no issue, when you stay debolstered for several play sessions.

The single best improvement to debolster would be enabling midtier sc. I personally see no reason to cut out half of all pvp activities for debolstered players. I hope it is only a technical reason.