chaud

I can make time to play the last few weeks and grab a decent title again, and I can perform fine at 2k, I don't see how that isn't at least somewhat serious. When I play my games I would rather get points like I should be getting, even if I don't have the PR.

Not to mention how important class balance will be because of this.

 

Maczor

Team hoping should never have been allowed (without severe penalities) in the first place, since the whole point of the Arena is to get your team to a high rating. I'm glad team hoping comes at a cost now.

 

Havok

I thought the TR was for Serious PvP'ers(tm)?

Also, the rating on wrist/belt/etc seems, well, odd to me. I'm trying to grok how getting Sunwell-level items for those slots is suddenly a problem now when exactly no one was complaining about it when the items were BT-level, etc.

 

Lezwyn

Well, to be fair, those items will be insanely powerful, on the level of T5 gear for PvE at least for most classes and better for some. Someone being able to pick up all of these after one week of leeching honor in AV does go too far for me, so I'm kind of glad Blizzard will implement this. However, I don't disregard the positive aspects of letting people catch up so I'm hoping this strikes a healthy balance.

(copied) I wonder if perhaps an unintented side effect of this might be a surge in arena activity. There are quite large amounts of people who don't really have the kind of mentality needed for a successful arena team, yet who do spend a lot of their time farming, say, Alterac Valley for the nice honour items who suddenly lose incentive to do this. I suspect the amount of 'free', i.e. no rating required, gear is enough to last all but the most dedicated players without arena teams so I reckon it won't be a problem, yet there probably will be people new to arenas trying their luck once more just for the promise of ilvl 155+ epics.

 

Brute

People need to stop arguing about weak 'specs'. Spec has been rendered irrelevant in the current economy. You can do 3-4 dailies on sunwell island, taking you all of 25 minutes, and you've paid your 50g respec fee. Now more than ever you play a class not, a spec.

Now whether you enjoy playing a given spec that is the 'arena' spec of your class, that is another issue (i certainly dont enjoy restoration) but the option is there and trivially available.

 

• Daboran

If the equivalent PvE items were itemized better they wouldn't want the Arena rewards. This holds true for much of the Arena gear and a lot of Arena abuse to date (especially, but not exclusively, on weapons) could have been avoided by better PvE itemization.
Having said this, it may well be that Blizzard want PvE raiders to have to do Arenas to fill gear gaps - meh, you reap what you sow in this respect.

Anyway, looks like the PvP wrists will still be in every Feral bag

Totally valid point, as long as they release 30 slot bags soon. Storing a set of resist gear for every school, spare tank/dps gear, spare PvE offspec gear then finding room for a full PvP set too - I've been living with 8 free slots on this char for far too long now...

 

Fugazor

I approve those changes, even for honor items. This should cut point/team selling at least and make PvP rewards less "welfare".

However what about players that dislike arenas but like rewards? Arena seems to be for PvP what raids are for PvE - the one and only right way. I think that is quite bad design and there should be different ways to obtain end-game gear both in PvP and PvE. For PvP it could be something with bigger numbers of people (guilds!) and world pvp involved, for PvE something for 5/10 mans (first step is already done with BoJ).

 

Alaron

This also means that higher rated teams will probally regularly bring alts onto the team to lower their effective rating, thereby gaining easy wins. The level of play around 1700-1800 for example, is significantly different from that of 1900-2000. Most of the difference by this point is no longer as heavily gear related, but coordination, reflex, class synergy, strategy, and the like.

I forsee high rated people abusing this system a lot. Unlike the old system, where you would have had to tank the team's rating to compete in a lower bracket and get easy wins, this lets you bring your geared (but low personal rating) alts onto the teams, effectivly picking what rating bracket you want to compete in. Since the team will still gain rating for wins against much weaker teams, you'll probally see a lot of people going for 5-10 point gains at a time with little to no challenge.

 

McTurok

I'm sorry but someone in full S3 PvP gear is not "week". You are trying to make it sound like some players will have ZERO PvP gear because of the new ratings. Please stop trying to make the changes sound so overdramatic.

Someone being in full S3 and pieces of S4 yet unable to get the last few pieces are right where they should be no matter what class you are.

 

Metrosexuelf

Moronic to put Arena ratings on items that don't even require Arena points to buy. Granted you can still buy the Season 3 stuff but if the point of introducing new rewards is to keep people playing then it makes little sense to shut people off from those rewards.

I'm sure many people will make the simplistic 'goods' versus 'bads' argument but that isn't the issue: it is Blizzard trying so desperately to push World of Arena Craft down more and more people's throats. I could probably spec Disc/Holy and find a couple of decent people to partner with and manage more than enough rating to buy the few pieces of Season 4 honor items but... I don't want to because I don't enjoy Arena. I don't think it has any place in an MMORPG but apparently Blizzard is going to be married to it for quite some time as it provides additional revenue.

 

McTurok

I think you'll lose points faster then you can gain them at the "top levels". Just seems to me what I've been reading in other thread.

And the way I read it, is the matching system uses the players personal rating, not just the team rating to match your games.

 

McTurok

There will always be those players who don't want to "earn" their gear. That's fine if you feel that way. Personally, I think the top pvp gear should all be "earned" and not free in any way.

 

Metrosexuelf

Earned is a loaded term. It's a video game. But as I said I am not going to get into the absurd "goods" versus "bads" debate because it is a straw man. The real issue, in my opinion, is the type of PvP Blizzard wants to promote. It is their company, so it is their decision. C'est la vie.

 

• thevidon

I like the changes overall in that it will allow me to see who is a decent arena player and who really isn't. Right now you can find 4/5 vengeful people with S2 weapons and they may never have been out of the 1500 bracket. It's hard to tell whether they are actually any good. Next season you can look at someone and tell exactly how high their personal rating has been.....not just the 1850/2000 check we have now.

I like the changes, and people who dont want to arena are more than welcome to avail themselves of the pve and badge rewards which are available to them. As stated earlier, a full set of S3 gear wont be anything to sneeze at next season. It's not like you cant compete at a decent level with one season old gear.

 

Fiola

I dunno about Republicans, but I find WoW to be fun because I feel like I'm "earning" what I get. Saving up points at the end of a season and buying 4~5 armor upgrades on the first day of a new arena season does not feel like I'm "earning" it. PvP gear is there to reward PvP - so why should I end up with half a dozen S4 items before I've even played a single round of S4 PvP?

What if some random NPC in Shatt simply gave out full T6 gear for talking to him? That'd be an easier way to improve your toon than killing Illidan and Archimonde - but there'd be no challenge, no fun, and no incentive to play. WoW needs *some* challenge, whether it's PvP or PvE - and rating requirements like 1550~1600 are a pretty small challenge for the gear you get.


I'm not sure, but it seems like S3 non-set items will still be available in S4. Even if they're not, S2 Armor/Weapons will have 0 rating requirements, and those will take a while to collect, too.

I think it's similar to how 25-man/10-mans are split up. The best of the best PvE gear is in 25-mans, but you can also get good gear in 10-mans. The best of the best PvP gear is from Arena*, but you can get some good gear from BGs. If you do both, you can get all the best in slot gear and gear up that much faster.

*not strictly true, but close enough

 

McTurok

Well, what I was going to add to that post (but got a phone call) was maybe this is the next step is BG ratings for like a rated WS ladder similar to arenas, etc.

The only reason I use the term "earned" is it's still pretty easy to AFK in BG's.

 

SanSul

Which is a novel idea, but taking gear away from spoon fed people just before an expansion and with heavy competition on the horizon is not good for business. Casual players are being punished in Season 4, and with gear becoming obsolete shortly, why exactly would Blizzard make it even harder to get.

This change basically says to everyone Blizzard doesn't want you to play arena unless you are in a 5s team, or are a Druid/Warrior or whatever the flavour of the month classes are. Class inbalance was a huge incentive not to play, and now with ratings requirements looming over the heads of handicapped class combos in arena, how does that make it more fair.

Why exactly does Blizzard want less people to play battlegrounds and as another person said, "force arena down our throats". Its nice that the only two means of progression in WoW are arena and raiding now, and if you do neither, Blizzard offers you nothing for months until WOTLK.

 

• sordee

Actually this is a major flaw in the system and here is a way to game it.

Example: Take a team with 5 Decently geared people, and two (P4 and P5) of them have S4 weapons already.

1)Team is now sitting at 2000 rating. Thus All 5 players have TR/PR of 2000.

2) P4 and P5 leave the team, and then rejoin the team. Now having PR of 1500.

3) New averaged PR team is now sitting at 1800. Now play as many games as you are only facing competition in the much lower bracket. True, you will only get 8-10 pts. But they will be much easier to win. (No more brick wall against high rated teams)

4) After a few more games, you may now be at 2040 for TR/PR of P1,P2 and P3. Since still short 2050, repeat steps 2 and 3.

You can do this with 3 people for more effect/more games to play.

 

Galred

Seems to me that the Arena has diverged pretty far from what I considered its original concept: play matches against other PvPers of the same gear/skill combination (team rating) with rewards for both winning AND losing.

Now, I don't mind lowering the amount of rewards for losing - the best gear should be for the best players, although I would prefer the scrubs to get access to items at a very high point cost. But honestly in any Arena Season, there will be top teams and... teams not at the top, to me it's just like raiding in that the lower-ranked players need someone to "look up to" even if it's just 'hey he's got the shoulders, must be a badass'. If your team never wins, I'm fine with not getting much of the current season's gear and being forced to slowly acquire the previous season's gear; it's still better than dungeon blues!

Unfortunately we haven't seen honest competition since S1. It is NOT FUN to get destroyed by players in high-PR gear who should be many brackets higher, and until this simply does not occur I think overall Arena participation will decline. Already there are plenty of posters theorizing that as less of the "terribads" play, it will be ever harder to get to the ratings which allow purchase of the best gear, and I agree with them.

Basically, if my rating is 1650, I don't want to face anyone with gear that requires 1750 or higher.

 

Sumie

I'd still much prefer an arena system where a player zones in with a full set of S4 gear, regardless of whether they're using greens/blues in the real world.

They can then buy that S4 gear with arena points, for use in world PvP, battlegrounds, or even PvE.

^ This way, arenas are based purely on skill, not about gear, and such a change would hardly break immersion from a fantasy world since arenas would typically deck out their gladiators in gear before they engage.

edit - furthermore, it would allow Blizzard to focus more on improving their world PvP and battlegrounds. As is, battlegrounds are merely a means to an end -- a way to gear up for arenas. With the above suggested change, the roles would be reversed. Arenas would become the means to gear up your character for world PvP.

 

Bunnyz

Regardless the quality, in my opinion, pvp items should be able to reflect "pvp effort" of the user. Don't you think it's a bit... easy to get BG items now? (I have seen people - or myself - who afk AV whole day, tabbing back and forth, jumping around, and still gain 15k honor or more in a holiday which is equal to one BG item). And it has been proven that there isn't many ways to prevent people from afking, so this is the best idea - force them to put some effort into pvp by gained a small amount of rating (1700 is the highest rating requirement for BG items - which is very much attainable even on the first day of s4)

Finally the gear we use can be used to judge how good we are, now if Blizzard make a change to prevent PR selling it would be golden to me (although I will miss my side-profit).

Trying harder, I guess. Personally I have seen ret pally, feral druid, SP, enhancement shaman with reasonably high rating, so I wonder if there are still any pvp classes that considered weak (weaker than some specs/classes, yes, but weak to the point it is impossible, no).

 

Metrosexuelf

My issue is that they are treating the symptom and not the disease. Of course farming honor is a joke but guess who made it a joke: Blizzard. I give them some credit for trying multiple times to fix AV but there are a lot of simple fixes they could make but don't such as linking graveyards and a more aggressive system against afk'ing than relying on a dozen other people to report someone.

I wouldn't say this is 'the best idea' for the entire customer base. It is certainly the best idea from their perspective because it further promotes Arenas and Arenas earn them huge amounts of additional revenue while battlegrounds do not.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record so I won't add anymore. At the end of the day the change doesn't effect me greatly because I'm getting ready to take a nice long break until the expansion brings another truckload of new PvE content; however, I am still concerned with the overall direction they are taking this game. The rating requirements aren't huge on their own but it is just another straw on the camel's back.