Season 4 PvP Changes - Page 3

Giantlol · 04/22/08, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by Pand

These changes are mostly to stop point-selling and monopolizing point-selling that top-tier PVPers gain.

Although the item power of these items will be given to PvPers, I -really- hope that s4 items gain significant stat gains due to the fact that PvE gear dominants arenas at the moment. I've never seen more imbalance and bias towards PVE gear these days in arena rating and ranks compared to the last 2 seasons. It's like how trivial StormHerald was in season 1, except that PVP gear isn't king anymore and it's acceptable to wear half PVE gear while maintaining 250-300 res. :/ Need DPS upgrades !

Although I approve of these changes (because they benefit my kin) however my means of income does demise

My guild is the epitome of this change, we've generated more or less around 500k+ gold in point-selling teams since the end of season 2/3.

ps. Need BIG E for PvE is hard imo

Exactly
This may have stopped point selling, but lets be honest, how much gold has any point seller made? I know since S2-Present I've cleared over 40k probably between PR, and pointselling. On top of the occasional daily, this really hasn't affected anything for me.
See,in s2, having a stormherald was pretty good, much better than the s3 weapon, and having access to T6 was great in some pieces, i.e. CE, etc, but it wasn't a big deal since only so many people actually had access to all that content. But now, almost anyone has access to ArP gear, to heavy damage gear, that like above said, you can just wear tons of PvE gear and drop your resil low and boost your damage to unhealable levels.
i.e. 3v3
Warrior using
Full veng, Dreadboots, CE
Rogue using
Warglaives, Cursed Vision, T6 4 pc, PvP offslots
+
A resto druid

A make up like that is almost guaranteed to instantly destroy any sort of caster just because a rogue doesn't lose too much in the way of survivability during his CDs, and gains so much damage that half the time you can end the game within your prep CD chain.

RootBreaker · 04/22/08, 4:22 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

What does it mean, though, to say that "they will earn points based on personal rating"? That a win for the team vs. a 1750-rated opponent will give person A 30 personal rating points, and a loss will lose 1, but for person B a win will gain 1 personal rating point and a loss will lose 30?

Doesn't this mean that you can essentially powerlevel someone even faster now?

No, this means that they will get arena points based on their personal rating, not that their ratings will change based on it.

Copernicus · 04/22/08, 4:24 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

I think the requirements for honor gear will work out okay. The idea is that anyone can come and get loot that's ilvl 141-146, but if you want stuff that's ilvl 156 or higher it's going to be very difficult to obtain. You need to be clearing sunwell or in a good arena team.

My biggest problem with honor pieces being linked to arena ratings is that new people to the arena game will be doing the honor grind twice. I'm also finding it kind of strange that there will be no arena option for shoulders/weapons in season four for the vast majority of the people participating in PvP. I'd be happier with the changes if season 2 weapons/shoulders were still available via arena points and if season 4 honor items could also be purchased from arena points.

Chirality · 04/22/08, 4:25 PM

Originally Posted by RootBreaker

No, this means that they will get arena points based on their personal rating, not that their ratings will change based on it.

So how does a 2000-rated team queing against a 1750-rated team work for the ratings, then? Wouldn't a loss to a team 250 points lower than you be devastating?

Giantlol · 04/22/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

So how does a 2000-rated team queing against a 1750-rated team work for the ratings, then? Wouldn't a loss to a team 250 points lower than you be devastating?

Things like this happen at high ratings too
2400 teams losing to 2200 teams, the losses are like 20+ points, but what can you do
And generally you wont see 1700 teams queueing against 2000 teams, there too many inbetween teams for that to happen, unless I'm understanding something wrong with the new system here

Pand · 04/22/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

So how does a 2000-rated team queing against a 1750-rated team work for the ratings, then? Wouldn't a loss to a team 250 points lower than you be devastating?

-30 points wouldn't be that big of a loss :P

Just 2-3 games to win to regain!

vesicular · 04/22/08, 4:31 PM

Originally Posted by Ellyh

I share the concerns about the amount of points available in the system as we move forward. I also feel that they also have not adequately addressed the problem of people with weapons/shoulders smurfing and grinding teams in the noob brackets (where I hang out).

With less people playing arena come S4 (and it will happen) it will be harder to get to 2000+. If it's harder and takes that much longer, there will be less people with S4 weapons/shoulders (as there should be) which by itself cuts down on pt selling teams. It's a win-win.

What's funny is that people bailing on PvP because they can't get gear easily with their low ratings are probably more likely to return to PVE (both raiding and heroics), to get gear for themselves. It tends to balance everything out all around, which is nothing but good imho.

Chirality · 04/22/08, 4:33 PM

Originally Posted by Giantlol

Things like this happen at high ratings too
2400 teams losing to 2200 teams, the losses are like 20+ points, but what can you do
And generally you wont see 1700 teams queueing against 2000 teams, there too many inbetween teams for that to happen, unless I'm understanding something wrong with the new system here

What I'm saying though is that if you have two players on a team, one rated 2000 and one rated 1500, it WILL queue you vs. a 1750 team (as it will queue based on the average personal rating if avg(personal) < team - 150). I just can't decide if this makes it easier or harder to powerlevel a person to X rating.

Ellyh · 04/22/08, 4:39 PM

Originally Posted by vesicular

What's funny is that people bailing on PvP because they can't get gear easily with their low ratings are probably more likely to return to PVE (both raiding and heroics), to get gear for themselves. It tends to balance everything out all around, which is nothing but good imho.

As a high rated player the very last thing you want to happen is for all the low end players to quit the arena as this lowers everyone's rating as fewer and fewer rating points enter the system meaning you may unavoidably fall below the requirement for the weapon or shoulders as the points aren't there to get. This has always been a major concern for people on smaller battlegroups.

Actually I think that the points values on all battlegroups are badly overinflated by team selling, point buying, win trading shenanigans and solid-good players on all servers will find it much much harder to get high ratings than in the past. The % of people able to get S4 shoulders will be tiny, probably much less than 1% of the arena population.

• sordee · 04/22/08, 4:45 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

What I'm saying though is that if you have two players on a team, one rated 2000 and one rated 1500, it WILL queue you vs. a 1750 team (as it will queue based on the average personal rating if avg(personal) < team - 150). I just can't decide if this makes it easier or harder to powerlevel a person to X rating.

Since you aren't facing a 2000 rated team, it will be easier for you to win the game. (Presumably the 1750 is on average less skilled/geared than 2000 rated team)

However after the win, the 1500 player will likely only get a bump of 24 pts to his personal rating instead of 31 pts. (Numbers out of my ass, but relatively valid)

Games need to level vs. Ease of competition.

PSGarak · 04/22/08, 4:54 PM

It might be useful to have a few alts lying around that you can form an arena team with and lose ten games a week. While they won't get gear anymore, it will help fill the bottom end of the ratings spectrum. It will take quite a few people doing this to make much of an effect, but I could see it becoming standard practice for hardcore PvPers.

nfw · 04/22/08, 4:56 PM

Are those ratings requirements for buying, or wearing?

Like others have pointed out, rating requirements on honor gear is very strange, what's next, put PR requirements on my CE? I suppose they have given up on battlegrounds completely at this point now and this is just the semi official announcement that it's nothing but a training ground for arena.

Also, with the presumed reduced number of arena teams, what if Blizzard limit the days you can play? Like Arena is only open on saturdays and sundays, after a certain rating.

◊ Vectivus · 04/22/08, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

It might be useful to have a few alts lying around that you can form an arena team with and lose ten games a week. While they won't get gear anymore, it will help fill the bottom end of the ratings spectrum. It will take quite a few people doing this to make much of an effect, but I could see it becoming standard practice for hardcore PvPers.

A better solution would be hardware infrastructure that could support merging Battlegroups - provided the instance servers for the Arenas/Battlegrounds could keep up.

McTurok · 04/22/08, 5:07 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

It might be useful to have a few alts lying around that you can form an arena team with and lose ten games a week. While they won't get gear anymore, it will help fill the bottom end of the ratings spectrum. It will take quite a few people doing this to make much of an effect, but I could see it becoming standard practice for hardcore PvPers.

Well, one would hope that all the players who are busy buying arena points will start their own teams a fill those spots.

Not to mention now BG Afk'ers will have to form arena teams so they can get those new Honor Rewards.

Either way, I don't agree with many of those saying players will just quit playing Arena matches. I for one am excited and will be coming back and I know of many others who feel this same way.

Now top PvP players can stack teams with their ALTs to get them points, but now they are better off creating another team for them, etc.

These are all nice changes. Now I'll finally be able to look at S4 shoulder wearing players and know they've accomplished something great in the game like those PvE players who have Illidan or Kil'jaeden gear.

RootBreaker · 04/22/08, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by nfw

Are those ratings requirements for buying, or wearing?

Like others have pointed out, rating requirements on honor gear is very strange, what's next, put PR requirements on my CE? I suppose they have given up on battlegrounds completely at this point now and this is just the semi official announcement that it's nothing but a training ground for arena.

Also, with the presumed reduced number of arena teams, what if Blizzard limit the days you can play? Like Arena is only open on saturdays and sundays, after a certain rating.

Just like the current requirements, the ratings are only required to buy the items.

As drysc said on the official forums, the non-set BG items exist to fill out the arena sets. WoW Forums -> Will Season 3 non-set items stay available?

There's no reason blizzard would limit the days you can play - that would make playing in arena even harder, especially for people who work on raid on those days, and compound the problem.

chaud · 04/22/08, 5:14 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

You are missing something.

Essentially if you join a 2000 rated team and play 10 games, and your personal rating is just 1500 you'll only earn like 200ish arena points instead of 900ish.

It's talking about the gear points, not the rating points.

That is my biggest problem. They should either allow you to choose and maintain your personal rating when team hopping, or base points on winning over half of the games and getting the points from a 2k team, vs winning half of the games and getting points from the low 1500s.

I hopped around almost every week for most of this season, and I ended up never playing to 1850 on one team, but if PR would have been maintained, I would have my weapon now.

This really hurts decent players that just play 10 games with whoever is on, making a hop necessary.

Malakitoo · 04/22/08, 5:20 PM

I like the arena mechanic changes. Basically, they heavily discourage team swapping without enforcing any kind of artificial cap by forcing you to actually re-level a team every time the team changes. This is annoying for those who legitimately play on multiple teams in the same bracket, but it also stops the majority of point selling.

Personal rating selling is something that is much harder to stop, as you actually have to lose to the person who's getting leveled. If that happens, he probably deserves the points. The only reasonable solution to this is to make personal rating determine everything. However, this can be solved by simply purposely tanking your personal in whatever bracket you sell in, even in absence of the easy teamquitting reset.

As to the ratings, as a higher-rated player, it doesn't matter that much to me except that I'll feel slightly more awesome. We will have to see how much this actually decreases the amount of participation in arena, most of what I'm hearing seems chicken little-esque to me.

Blackthought · 04/22/08, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by McTurok

Well, one would hope that all the players who are busy buying arena points will start their own teams a fill those spots.

Not to mention now BG Afk'ers will have to form arena teams so they can get those new Honor Rewards.

Either way, I don't agree with many of those saying players will just quit playing Arena matches. I for one am excited and will be coming back and I know of many others who feel this same way.

Now top PvP players can stack teams with their ALTs to get them points, but now they are better off creating another team for them, etc.

These are all nice changes. Now I'll finally be able to look at S4 shoulder wearing players and know they've accomplished something great in the game like those PvE players who have Illidan or Kil'jaeden gear.

This line of thinking is why the republicans do well in impoverished areas and frankly baffles me. Why are you excited about changes that will limit your personal ability to improve your toon?

[This is based on the assumption that your arena ratings are accurate.]

Personally, I could care less about these changes but I still think back to S1 and have the feeling that rating requirements were the cause of all of the arena issues. Before rating mattered for anything other than titles, you didnt run into steamroller teams in the 1500s.

McTurok · 04/22/08, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by chaud

That is my biggest problem. They should either allow you to choose and maintain your personal rating when team hopping, or base points on winning over half of the games and getting the points from a 2k team, vs winning half of the games and getting points from the low 1500s.

I hopped around almost every week for most of this season, and I ended up never playing to 1850 on one team, but if PR would have been maintained, I would have my weapon now.

This really hurts decent players that just play 10 games with whoever is on, making a hop necessary.

I'm sorry but I think S4 gear is for serious PvP Players.

Anyone whom can not stay on the same team or can't play more then 10 games a week shouldn't be worried about the S4 rules.

I see S4 gear as end-game gear. Not everyone should have access to it. That's why there is S2 and S3 available.

• Darkmyst · 04/22/08, 5:24 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

How do these changes impact changing teammates?

Say person A has a 2000-rated 2v2, and needs a new teammate. Person B is now on the 2000-rated 2v2 with a personal rating of 1500.

Because of :

Does this mean that, as the average personal rating on this 2000-rated team is 1750, that the team will play 1750-ish-rated teams?

What does it mean, though, to say that "they will earn points based on personal rating"? That a win for the team vs. a 1750-rated opponent will give person A 30 personal rating points, and a loss will lose 1, but for person B a win will gain 1 personal rating point and a loss will lose 30?

Doesn't this mean that you can essentially powerlevel someone even faster now?

The problem here is that people would try to game the system that way - say having 3 people leave a 2k rated 5v5 and immediately rejoin to tank the average PR to 1700. Sounds like a good way to push a couple of people on the team 2200 (albeit slowly) against lower competition. It works fine if only a few people are doing that but once it's a wide spread phenomonon you'll start runing into more and more teams at that 1700-1750 level doing the same thing and you won't be able to maintain a high enough win:loss ratio to keep the team rating from sliding back down.

McTurok · 04/22/08, 5:25 PM

Originally Posted by Blackthought

This line of thinking is why the republicans do well in impoverished areas and frankly baffles me. Why are you excited about changes that will limit your personal ability to improve your toon?

[This is based on the assumption that your arena ratings are accurate.]

Personally, I could care less about these changes but I still think back to S1 and have the feeling that rating requirements were the cause of all of the arena issues. Before rating mattered for anything other than titles, you didnt run into steamroller teams in the 1500s.

I haven't done anything on this character for months other then dailys for SSO. I have lots of room to improve this character and I'm looking forward to the new season to do so. As well as my other characters I've leveled to 70.

Alhena · 04/22/08, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

As someone who hates arena, I have to say that this is a relief simply because next season I won't feel obligated to queue for the betterment of the raid.

I hate arena. I don't want to lose 10 games a week, but they put gear on the vendor that's totally accessible, and in many cases is "best in slot" for my progression level. With this no longer being the case, I no longer have to queue!

Amen, brother.

I'm totally okay with restricting Sunwell calibre epics to people good enough to earn them. I dun like arena either, but the option of picking up strong pieces (especially S3 gear) for very little effort meant I felt obligated to do it. Why would I ignore one avenue of making my character better and more able to do their job in a raid?

So rating restrictions that put most of S4 out of the reach of point farming teams like mine are just fine with me. I'll cheerfully stop doing arena. Y'all have fun at the top.