Calixtus

This indeed appears to be Blizzard's opinion as well, but still; Why?

Why would the playstyle alteration of respecc'ing at regular intervalls - or in the case of our hybrid brethren, regearing - to enjoy multiple aspects of the game be acceptable game design?

"Individual talents are better for PvP or PvE respectively". Yes, by design. Not random chance, or insurmountable facts. Shadowfury - Warlock Destruction 41 point talent - is inferior in a PvE setting to Demonic Sacrifice - Warlock Demonology 21 point talent - for PvE purposes because Shadowfury offers no significant bonus in PvE. If Shadowfury were to offer a bonus in PvE, as well it's PvP-centric effect, that would not neccesarily hold true. Individual talents are only centered around PvP or PvE because they were designed that way.

Talent trees are even easier to sort out. The more powerful it is, the higher into the tree you stick it. Put it high enough, and you will be able to buff feral druids without buffing resto druids, because resto druids won't be able to get that high anyway. If you feel a given ability has too much of an effect in PvP while your intent was to buff PvE, fiddle with the implementation the same way almost all crowd controls use different durations depending on whether the target is PvP or PvE. Heck, you could even reuse the mechanics behind "Increases spell damage against Demons" to further separate PvE and PvP usage.

My point is, the current disparaties between different spec's (and/or talents) do not represent a neccesary state of affairs, so why accept it as such? We as customer's don't benefit from it, and Blizzard certainly doesn't benefit from it because one of these days, someone is going to do a better job at implementing functioning balance - perhaps not a perfect job, but it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be better than what we have now - and Blizzard'll lose customers.

And even if were to accept the fact that one talent tree is meant to be the PvP talent tree then that implemention is in most classes quite poor.

• PvP talents are in some cases sprinkled throughout the trees in ways that hampers PvE builds by being forced prereqs, or vice versa, or they're just generally not used, at all, due to their positioning.
• The PvP talent trees, most notable for hybrids, require a completely different playstyle than the one you rolled the class for. I play a pure class myself so at least I keep reasonably close to what I rolled the class for, but if I weren't... Being locked out of meaningful PvP because what I rolled is not meant to perform in a meaningful fashion is not something I'd find acceptable.
• The PvP talent tree for some classes has changed due to various balance changes. If your going to use a single tree for meaningful PvP, pick one*. Leaving leftover PvP talents ê la warlock's Destruction tree does not add to the game experience.

*It should be noted that the official Death Knight preview features a line indicating that they have made that choice for Death Knight, and that the "single PvP talent tree" design decision is therefor likely to be implemented better than it currently is, but it is also likely to stay this way for the forseeable future. I still say it's poor design though =P



And more on the topic of the S4 changes;

In theory, it's nice to see Blizzard turning more of the PvP rewards into rewards for succesful PvP. In practice, I'm not sure I think basing it on arena ratings is the best approach possible, nor do I think the change is sweeping enough.

First of all, honour and marks are still gained through unsuccesful PvP. I don't mind the quality of the items being handed out from PvP if used in PvE, that's not a problem. What is a problem is that they've - to this point - still been entirely attainable without ever doing anything remotely useful in a battleground. Strictly speaking, you don't ever need to A) Kill another player B) Win a battleground. Most people manage both of these at least by accident, but the underlying design still does not make those demands of people in PvP.

And rating requirements does not change this. Yes, it's definitely a step in the right direction, but will this improve the quality of battleground PvP, i.e. actually improve the part of PvP where people spend most of their dedicated "PvP time"? No. We'll still see the same organized failing brought on not by inability (I refuse to believe people are that inept) but by the fact there is little reward in caring about the outcome. And while leeching is certainly less of a problem than it once was, it still exists.

Second of all, there's using the arena as a yardstick for "succesful PvP". Class balance in arena is an issue; Just look at the various metrics extracted from the armoury. Some classes are more suited to achieve higher ratings than others, in some cases due to class design, and in other cases due to arena design. As some poster - not sure if it was here or in the official forums - noted; No matter how balanced the classes are, deathmatch style PvP will always favour certain combinations that would not neccesarily be favoured in a capture the flag or zones-of-control environment, such environments presented in battlegrounds. In my personal opinion, the more areas in which performance is required, the better. While arena rating is the easiest available way to mesure PvP success, being only one currently available does not make it the best, or even a good way to do it.


Rating requirements on all PvP items is definitely a step in the right direction, but it's far from "fixing" the flaws of WoW PvP.