krucifix85

There are many, many points to discuss regarding the new Arena's that will be introduced into WoW 2.0.

The "2.0 PTR up" thread had moved on to discussing the new Arena's and I thought they were interesting enough to have their own thread.

Firstly, what we know about the Arena's:
- 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 Combat
- Will be based on Battlegroups (obviously)
- Possible to fight your own faction (yey)
- Uses an ELO ranking system. But it's very similar to Blizzard's own implementation in the Warcraft 3 ladder system, and is based on an old Chess Rating System.
The basic's of the system are:
Each team is given a rating, the higher your rating the better you are. The higher rating teams you beat, the higher your rating can go. If you beat a low rating team, your rating won't necessarily increase. (e: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system, ty Oggie)
- Cooldowns are reset at the start of each Arena fight
- During the "Start Time" (the 1 minute when you are in the Arena before it starts) all buff's cost zero. This include Warrior Shout's and all mana buffs.
- Re-agent's are still used. (Soul Shards required, Rogue re-agents required)
- The maximum amount of "Arena Points" you can get each week won't be accumulative for each type (2v2 or 3v3 or 5v5). It will be the maximum points you gain in one type of Arena Play, with 5v5 getting a large multiplier, 3v3 getting a smaller multiplier and 2v2 getting a smaller again (or no) multiplier.
- Arena's will be played in 3 month season's, with the top team after each season receiving an Armored Netherdrake (is this exactly correct?)
- After certain PvE goals are met, new armor/weapons will be brought out in the next Arena season to keep PvP and PvE items at a similar power level.
- You only get "Arena Points" from your lvl 70 arena team games, and none from the skirmish (ty Jessi & namufut)
- You don't get any Honor from arena games. Not even for each individual kill

Discussion:
Personally, I believe all re-agent requirement's should be removed from Arena play. They fit into a similar category as Cooldown's / buff's, in that if you are meant to have every buff and cooldown ready for every Arena, why shouldn't you have every re-agent as well?
A spin off, would be to make purchasable Arena only re-agents, just like the Bandages and Food's for Battleground Only use, as was suggested by Pyros (#735). A Warlock, no matter what Arena team you are playing in, will always have enough shards to last him at least the next game. If we remove the annoying task of re-farming after each couple of Arena's we'd make many people happier for it.

Agree? Or are Warlock's destined to farm for ever? Rogue's must all be Herbalists or Auction House sharks to function at their full potential? It's interesting, and I'd really like to see what reason's (if any) there are against the "no re-agents" idea.


Another point on the Arena's I'd like to discuss is the popularity of 5v5's vs 2v2's and 3v3's. Dakous (#724) suggested that 5v5's would be the most popular due to the fact that less personal responsibility would be on each player who signed up. While I'd find this true for the Random Teams (PuGs), I'd wager it's not the only reason. Why would you ever sign up to a 2v2, when it's very possible that your team could be a gimped 2x Holy Priest, or 2x Holy Paladin or no healer at all. At least with the 5v5's no matter what class you are, it's possible that you might get a close to balanced team.

Of course with organised teams, they could range to whatever size, but 5v5 being the most tactically difficult (more people to synchronise, and more people to combat) I would easily imagine this being the highest played by organised groups as well. Also, for a previously suggested reason, because a 2v2 team may always have a gimmicky counter, while it's much easier to get a balanced "world-beater" 5v5 team.

Do you know of anyone or yourself perhaps, who will exclusively do 2v2 or 3v3 combat? Why? Is it because you would prefer to just play with your best mate? Do you not trust others? Prefer that style of combat?
Personally, I'll be considering using my Priest in 5v5's (that's where i've had most of my practice, as a disc/holy, healbot, tanking priest) and use my Warlock in the 2v2's. Mainly because I like controlling things with my Warlock, and it's much easier to control a 1v2 than it is to control a 1v5. :P

I'm sure there are many more avenues of discussion regarding the Arena's, and I've left a few questions up in there to hopefully direct the thread a bit. So, thoughts?

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

◊ Oggie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system is (I think?) what you're looking for.

 

Nite_Moogle

It's worth mentioning that as far as I have found, the only way to get epic quality weapons from PVP is through the arenas or through specific BG rewards. The vendors in Hall of Legends only sell blue-quality weapons.

 

Xunwael

The arena's what now?

"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law

 

Jedah

Ugh, I was really hoping that Arena's would be server only, and not battlegroup; pvp feels like its lost alot of its charm and fun when you're not fighting against people you know.

 

jessi

More info on the arena:

- Won't be able to create arena teams until 70
- You can PuG it, or join as group (skirmish) and can face alliance or horde.
- If you join with your arena team you can only face the opposite faction (correct if wrong)
- You only get "honor" from your lvl 70 arena team games, and none from the skirmish (correct if wrong)

I've spent a lot of time on the PTR in them as a rogue, warrior and paladin and I have the most fun in 2v2 and 3v3 and have hardly spent any time in 5v5 because it seems like it's much more of a clusterfuck.. however, from what you said... at 70 in a arena team I'd get more honor from it? :(

 

xi0nic

I hate to nitpick... but there is no apostrophe in "Arenas".

Now that I got that out of the way, I think it's safe to say that I'll be able to perform best in a 2v2 group. Paladins will shine in that scenario. I'll be able to spec Retribution and deal some burst damage, and still have the blessings/cleansing/healing needed to keep my teammate going. I'm looking forward to trying it out, for sure...haven't been on the PTR at all.

 

Dynalisia

I reckon that if people start rolling with permanent teams in ranked-brackets, a tighter community will develop very quickly.

 

marty

For the reagent issue, I’d really like to see a class quest to fix the blinding powder/soul shard problem. Say at level XX you start a quest that upon completion nets you a permanent item to hold in your inventory that each time it is used evokes a cooldown. Now, for the soul shard item this could cause problems when handing out healthstones or summons, but the designers would be able to go back and rework spell cooldowns to help fix this. For blinding powder the cooldown is already freaking there.

 

Pyros

There's plenty of Crafted Epic weapons, BoE and BoP. Sure, crafts involve farming mobs(and thus is PvE content), but considering it can be done solo I think it's worth noting.
Other than that yeah, I found it weird to see than honor rewards were becoming blue at 70, they might add more powerful versions before release or later tho.

 

krucifix85

Sorry for my liberal use of apostrophes. I'm sure there are many more mistakes in there. :( I'll edit the OP to include ELO ranking though, thanks Oggie.

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

Taoq

So when 2.0 go lives it appears there won't be much reason at all to do arenas aside from how fun they are? Damn, I was hoping we could at least get some honor for it or something. I the arenas are damn fun on the PTR but once the novelity runs out there won't be much of a reason to do it I suppose.

 

◊ Eej

The only thing gold and honour points can't buy you in this game and the only reason to play Arena heavily before TBC is ePeen.

 

Chmee

Fairly certain this is not the case.

 

krucifix85

And Jessi, from what I've read, yes 5v5 will be on a higher scalar for honor points than 2v2 or 3v3. Not *exactly* sure what it all means, but I think something like the top 5v5 team would earn more honor than the top 2v2 team.

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

Elendril

more arena ranking points, not honor, but yeah, that's exactly what it means.

 

namufot

-If you join with your arena team you can play teams from both factions.
-I have not received any "honor" points from my lvl 70 arena games. I think what you mean is that you can only get arena points from level 70 arenas, not to be confused with honor. I have played both rated and non-rated games and neither one has been giving "honor" for kills. Also I think their system is bugged right now on beta because my 3's team went 26-6 last week and I didn't get any arena points for it while my team mates did. T_T

I've played a lot of 2v2 and 3v3 @ lvl 70 now and there are just matchups, especially in 2v2, that really favor one team. One problem I forsee with 5v5's is that the arenas are too small, especially the blades edge one. The nagrand arena is decently sized for a 5v5 but I'd still like to see just a plain area, no pillars or bridges or whatever else, that is decently sized.

 

◊ Eej

I'm fairly certain that all arenas will be designed with obstacles because ducking in and out of LoS is a huge part of PvP.

 

Pyros

I hope they add non breaking los decorations tho, like tall herbs or trees. I found that hiding your character in BGs was pretty fun to do. You know like when the dwaf priests go and hide in herbs at the AB smith and chain heal while being ignored. It forces you to keep an eye out of the middle of your screen to spot the magical effects and such, and make tracking more important if the map is complex enough.

I'm wondering what's the plan with arenas, currently there's only 2, but if you go and run around the zones, you can really see them(and use them as normal live arenas like gurubashi or dm). However in the other zones, there's no arena yet. Maybe they don't plan on adding any other arenas besides those 2 until the end. I would assume adding such a big building on a map would take a bit of time/work. Or maybe not, I hope we'll see at least one more map for arenas tho, Blade's edge is so biased toward classes with instant casts because of LoS issues in the ramps that's it's not really fun if you play a dest lock, a hunter or a healing paladin. Also pet pathing is pretty annoying in there so pet based classes might have more trouble sustaining their dps.

 

Crossbones

2v2s give dramatically less points than 5v5s. I forget the exact values, but 5v5s were something like ~2.5 - 3x as much given the same rating. I think 5v5 should give more, but I still think 2v2 should be viable to the point where you do it more than just for kicks. I've found that on the PTRs, the popularity goes from 5 -> 2 but on the beta, it's the reverse since there's not as many people queuing.

On the PTRs, burst damage without the lv 70 HP gains makes things pretty lame. Playing with me (holy priest), 2 AP mages, an ele shaman, and a prep rogue, nothing could even come remotely close to stopping us as they'd pretty much instantly die. Honestly, I'm kind of worried that things will be stupid even with the hp gains. I'm not 70 yet since I'm not really playing all that hard and want to save some for retail, but the numbers I see 70s putting out are pretty huge and I'm not sure an extra 4-5k hp will make enough of a difference.

Reagents should just be free in the arena. There's no reason warlocks/rogues/etc should have to farm since it's not like they're going to waste their precious ten games playing unprepared anyway.

You definitely can fight your own faction contrary to what someone said above.

 

Vhad

I really wonder why they put in Blade's Edge Arena like they did, it's just a horrible map, skeletons on the bridge and the sand making simple things as walking around a pain in the ass. If it's still random on live servers when the arenas are rated I can see my self hiding and leaving queue for all Blade's Edge Arena invitations because of the poor design and the LOS disadvantages casters suffer from in that arena.
Nagrand however is awesome, the only gripe I have with that arena is those silly Tornados, adds a level of randomness to the arena that I do not appreciate.

5vs5 might be fun if you have a proper group for it (friends/guildies etc) but from all the testing I did on PTR I just found em very very boring, another poster called it a clusterfuck and I can only attest to that - especially in Blade's Edge.
I'm afraid that if you wish to advance in the arena system you have to resort to doing 5vs5s or you won't accumulate enough points to be worth the time investment etc. pigeonholing people to get a 5 man team. So far I've been very pleased with the Arena type fighting and have had a ton of fun, I hope it continues in TBC.

What!?

 

Tynnan

I can't take credit for the work behind this, but I found some posts on the Beta realms discussing the point rewards in the Arena system:


2v2:
5v5:
Logistic Curve:

 

• Maels

They need to add more than 2 Arenas, the few days I've played them and I am already bored with the bridge one. Although I thoroughly enjoy running around the mullberry bush in the one with the 4 pillars.

 

Tynnan

Yeah the Blade's Edge arena can be annoying at times with the convoluted LOS paths caused by the bridge, pillars, and ramps.

Nagrand's "simpler is better" approach works wonders, though.

I'd like to see something with a little water -- nothing deep or movement-impairing, but because sand and stone gets a little boring to look at after a while.

 

Kinv

The different terrain adds variety and forces you to possibly different strats for the different arenas, though unless it's been changed the Pillar in the blades edge arena you can jump to could be a pretty huge point to control since you can pretty easily block all melee from accessing it. Also if you especially hate the terrain in one of the arenas, in BC you can Q for just 1 of the arenas if you Q from the actual arena and not the goblin in the major cities, that's if it hasn't been changed since the beginning of beta however.