CasT

I was like a kid knowing he is gonna get candy next saturday when I first heard of the arena tournament. And when the loot was presented... you all know where I am going. But the Arena has not been the joy I was hoping for. It's not that I am playing a lowrated team, or all those losses to "worse teams".

Yesterday we put together a random wsg raid and it was fun again. Sure 3-0 against randoms has nothing fun about it. And we lost against the first raid we met. But it's so obvious to me now that after 8 weeks of arena, that when you only can play with team members and one of them i.e the pala works shift you're screwed. The joy I have with BG's is that if someone is on Ibiza one week the whole team won't fall through, you just replace him, no hard feelings the show must go on.

Planning the arena is the key, but it's hard to plan with kids (16-24 y.o) because I don't want to make them stay inside instead of having IRL experiences such as sunshine, excercise, and parties/ hangovers. I am not saying that its hard to make the 10 games a week and that Arena is just for loosers. But Arena also requires practice, and in my BG the only skirmishes you get are 1 or 2 ppl using it for transport to that city. To become a top team you must have the games behind you, or be extremly good.

What I amtrying to say is that 5vs5 arena seems alot harder to plan than having a instance raid, or BG raid. Therefore I like BG's better due to that it's the real deal every game, nomatter if you are playing with randoms or raid. And I hope that if Blizzard puts together a "rated" BG system that it opens to better rewards.


What is your take on the Arena, do you still enjoy it or is your team just playing for loot?

Do not matter how much you play, you will never get the carrot.

 

◊ Vontre

I enjoy the hell out of it, but I agree finding teammates and actually getting to play is... obnoxiously difficult, at times. And I'm the kind of guy who will skip raiding for pvp without thinking twice. Unfortunately, no one else on my team is.

My issue is I would like to play more, but I can't because the format is too restrictive (must have x people of x class who are on your team or else, no games!). The class restrictions really hurt things as far as getting a group together goes. It always ends up "well we have these x friends who are really good, but no second healer and too many of them are dps".

www.magegraf.com
www.magegraf.com/mage_dps.zip

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

 

• Amera

It's more equivalent to raiding, basically. A lot of people have the view of PvP being very casual - take whoever you want to a BG, play for fun, get some honor, and so on. Maybe occasionally try and find some organized teams on a BG holiday, but win or lose didn't really matter.

Arenas aren't like that - at least not if you want to be good. Yes, you'll get your gear in time even sucking, but to be competitive you have to schedule play times, play a lot to get group chemistry, and pick an appropriate class balance - just like raiding.

I think the difference you are describing is that between a casual and a more hardcore play style, PvP or PvE. You seem to want to be able to take it casually and have fun, and that's what BGs are about.

 

• Groglox

I am always bugging my arenamates to pvp. We had a pretty good run on our "get it out of the way now incase we are busy" 10 matches, and it only invigorated me to see how well we could do, but yeah alot of the times they are busy.

As for battlegrounds, I really dislike them. The pvp there in general is boring, tedious, and I am only there because the belt/boots/wrist/cloak don't come from arena points. None of the current battlegrounds are really fun. You either annihilate poorly geared pugs, or get zerged down. AV is decent for honor, but you still have to farm for marks from other BGs.

 

Keline

as Amera said, you actually need to schedule your games and it's not a problem at all. If someone doesn't have time during one week, you can do only 10 games when he can squeeze an hour.

Also "being good", well we haven't done more than ~12 games per week since the third week, yet we're constantly climbing in rating & ranking (1953 now) - but then I'm playing with some of the most hardcore PVPers on this planet, Orcish Empire or Oger if you have heard from them back in War3 =P

Battlegrounds, meh I only do them for the PVP rewards that shamefully aren't covered by the Arena system. I loathe how there's no healing gear to be had.

 

◊ Vain

The problem I have with my 5v5 is that we have 5 players have known each other a long time and who like to play together, but we don't have the class mix we want, and whereas when we were playing Guild Wars, we could instantly create whatever class was needed at the time, in WoW it's an extremely long time investment to level-, gear-, and faction- up a new character.

Our 5v5 team is warlock(me), 2x warrior, paladin, druid. Druid is in my opinion incredibly subpar for this setup as the second healer, when compared with a priest or shaman. Unfortunately we don't have any pvp-dedicated shamans in the guild, so instead of spending a long time trying to find a shaman or priest who is reasonably good, who doesn't have an annoying voice, who plays at similar times, and who is easy to get along with, we decided to just go with who we know, even if it isn't the desired class. We've been having a lot of fun playing together, but our class setup is going to put a hard cap on our rating at some point.

 

Machichi

maybe I'm weird, but I dislike situations where you MUST min/max. Sure it's nice to be in the optimal set-up for WSG with a tauren MT, feral drood, 2 priests, a pair of 3-min mages, and assorted DPS/support, but one of the most fun groups I've done was an 8-lock, 2-shadow priest WSG. You can't do a 3-lock, 2-SP 5v5 group, you can't have an all-hunter 3v3, and it's frustrating. I don't like being told something won't work, I'd rather say 'fuck it, lets see what happens'. Maybe I'm an odd-ball casual pvper or something, but I'm just a fan of the easy-going goof-off and enjoy your pvp attitude that has been a part of every pvp group I've ran with. Arenas seems to be contrary to that, which is a bummer. The initial idea of arenas piqued my interest, but the more I learn, the less interested I am. I don't want to have to spec into felguard to survive, I liked being a glass cannon destro freak.

Oh, and I still love BGs. WSG is a riot on my main, my 48 priest, my 29 rogue, I love me some CTF. I wish I could buy a 70 feral drood and spec him just for flag carrying. AB is great fun, I love that you can do your own thing while still essentially playing within the team design/scheme. Ninjaing the stables/practicing your 1v2's is a hoot. AV is alright, I miss the 3 hour sieges, they ruined a perfectly good battleground.

I like you peoples...

 

• Amera

Well again, its the difference between a casual approach and hardcore approach. A 23 shadow priest raid wouldn't work either, and neither would a 4 shadow priest arena team. Arena and Raiding are created as venues where Min-maxers thrive, whereas 5 mans and BGs are designed for casual play.

 

• Quickshot

I agree with the casual/hardcore approach. It will determine your strategy for arena.
Don't forget that the arena tournament is the long awaited response from Blizzard to hardcore pvpers.

Armory

 

Kink

Sort of a similar problem =). Whenw e sit down and play, we usually play 20 games in a row. That means missing that night leaves a person having to make up a lot of games, and in 5v5 with 6 on the roster it just means that we need to all play like 300 games a week!

I know they dont want people to carry others on the team but I hate being forced to play games due to being on the bench and needing at extra 25games to make up the 20% =/.

Maybe I will try and get people to do a max of 5games a night and then we play some WSG in the meantime. Should be fun =)

There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.

 

• alcaras

I think the concept of "arena teams" does much harm to the system, in that you can't just grab 4 friends and play -- you have to pick four friends, buy a charter and chain yourself to those folks for the rest of the season. While this is feasible for some, it isn't for many, and skirmishes aren't really substitute (I haven't seen a 5v5 skirmish that I hadn't set up).

I'd much rather have automatic ratings -- all games are rated, there are no "arena teams," and you earn ratings based on who you queue with (minimum of 10 games). If anyone's familiar with Arranged Teams in Warcraft 3, it would work exactly the same way -- playing games with folks would immediately give you a rating with those people, and whomever you played with give you a rating with, so you would have multiple ratings at any given time, but only earn arena points from your highest one with 10 or more games that week (just as it is now).

This would revolutionize arenas and increase their appeal, as the hardcore teams could still do what they're doing now, but now people across the spectrum can join in far more "casually" than they could before. They can play 10 games one week with one set of folks, and 10 games another week with a different set. If I'm on a hardcore arena team and my guild mates who aren't want to play some games with me and earn rating, they can do that.

Right now arena teams are effectively "raid lockouts" for an entire season on PvP players, whereas, to make them more accessible, teams should be dynamically created based on who you play with, a la Warcraft 3's Arranged Teams.

 

• Avair

As a currently resto spec'd shaman, arenas are pretty fun. BG's on the other hand, are about as enjoyable as trip to the dentist.

I know some people don't enjoy competitive gaming (in the tournament style) so Arena is not going to rub them the right way. I really enjoy the min/max style, and my only regret is that my BG is so small its hurting our ratings and even our ability to play. I have pretty much had to fall back to 2v2 just to get a game.

 

◊ Kalman

It also fixes the team-sale exploit that currently exists (burn a 2v2 up to 2k rating, sell it to someone else the next week.)

Simply give each player an individually tracked rating (like in chess), use rating averages as the "team" rating when doing matching, and suddenly the concept of a team is a lot more flexible. Require a minimum number of personal games.

(Of course, this gives rise to "Pay us 4 to queue with you and we'll raise your rating" problems.)

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

• Disquette

not that different from "Pay us to stand around and do nothing except be in our BWL for your T2 gear".

I like the individual ratings part. I might actually try an arena once or twice that way.

----- sig ---------------
Discoepfeand - rogue / Disquette - shaman
A stormstrike / shocks /watershield timer-bar addon: http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/9729/
"Moogle has mentioned this in passing a few times but never elaborated on it. Perhaps we can entice him to respond." - Malan

 

• frmorrison

I enjoy the Arenas, but dislike that you need a Pally + Warrior (in 5v5) to be competitive. 5v5 Arenas are similiar to raiding, you need the right classes and need to schedule a time so everyone can show up to get games in.

Pally already got nerfed enough, and the only fix to lessen the need for a Warrior is reducing Mortal Strike's ability by som % or reduce the duration.

I would love to see this change to a personal rating (so you can queue with 4 others for min of 10 games and get that rating), it would really help causal players. Ofc get the same 3 brackets.

Battlegrounds are what others said, you really destroy undergeared/skilled PuGs, or sometimes you get rolled over (assuming you solo queue). I like AV the best for honor, I usually am 100,000 damage over the next guy (DoT everything I see and don't die). If I get a group, most of the time we steamroll over the other group, so it is fun only a few times. At least the honor requirements for the gear is being lessened soonish.

 

Keline

One might argue that some heroic instances are currently the strongest Min/Max areas in the game

 

oldmandennis

I like this alot. The best players will still form teams and play mostly with those people, but the more casual ones will be able to pick up people more easily.

As far as your "pay to queue with us" problem, I don't think it would exist. Top players would not want to risk their ranking with an unknown. 4 high ranked people with one 1500 would still result in a high ranked team - one that would typically only get a few points per win.

I think I might have a way to exploit the system though... teams carrying a pair of alts (lets call them the sandbags) around to artificially lower their collective rating. These alts /afk their way through the beginning of the week, depressing their rating to 1300 or so. Then they are queued with the main team, resulting in a lower team rating which would mean an easier match and more points for the win. The sandbags would get arena points pretty slowly, but a team dedicated enough to do this would probably be dedicated enough to farm BG's to get them the blue set, which isn't bad for most classes.


Changing topic, my personal opinion is that with Warhammer and Conan on the horizon, WoW is going to have to do something about PvP or it will lose substantial market share. The arena system is well thought out and done, but is too limiting. It's all small skirmishes. BG's are pretty much a joke. If another company can deliver a decent game, with larger, objective based, more heroic PvP, WoW could lose a lot of subscriptions.

They need to get moving on two fronts before those two games hit. BG's need to have their reward structure looked at <again>. Hopping in a tunnel should not be a rational strategy for advancement. Use the arena rating/point system as a starting place, in my opinion, but you need to implement a system that strongly rewards performance while remaining friendly to casuals. The current system was a nice "thank you for playing vanilla WoW, here are some epics for leveling". As an interesting system for ongoing advancement, it is a complete failure.

The second front is they need more maps/variety. AV needs to be redone <again>. Double general races can't be the norm. There is some combination of buffing defenses to stop racing, but buffing summoned/quested units to bust open turtles that will lead to games that last from 1-4 hours, with a racing victory as unlikely as a 12hr stalemate. The game is 2 1/2 years old now, there needs to be a second epic, large scale map. Progress needs to be made on siege engines. EotS is rather flacid content. I'm not saying it should be removed, but it didn't really bring anything new to the table. A race, hostages, escort, treasure hunt... something new in BG's is essential. Maybe something with flying mounts/bombing runs?

 

◊ Vontre

Battlegrounds aren't the problem, arena is - by way of comparison. Arena has defined itself as "real pvp" in a lot of people's minds and no one takes anything else seriously. Why should they? With arena, you get a real rating that somewhat accurately measures your team's skill. You get much better gear as well. What do battlegrounds and world pvp have to offer that can compare? Do players who enter battlegrounds now actually care whether they win or lose? It all seems so hollow compared to the clear-cut victory or defeat of a ladder/ranking system.

This is of course a huge problem. Personally.. I think arena should not be a part of world of warcraft, but its own game ala warIII, counterstrike, what have you. The mmo aspect of WoW is holding the arena back from becoming a real competitive game (too many barriers to entry), and arena as part of the world of warcraft is quite simply diminishing the "world" aspect of pvp in the game. With every patch and feature warcraft is becoming less of a world and more of a lobby to enter different instances.

I know a lot of this is not specific to battlegrounds but I think the problem is much more related to the forest rather than the trees. PvP combat in and of itself is fun. Capture the flag is fun. So where does the failure lie? This I think is the question we should be looking at.

www.magegraf.com
www.magegraf.com/mage_dps.zip

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

 

subscience

I certainly do, only because how quickly we win affects how much Honor I can accrue per time spent. And the quicker I can accrue points, the sooner I can leave these shit holes.

I certainly agree with you, though- The addition of Arenas seems to have made BGs obsolete. If I could purchase non-Arena PvP gear with Arena Points instead of Honor and tokens, I would never step foot into a BG again.

 

◊ Kalman

Make rating changes non-uniform, based on your rating vs. opponent's average rating. That way even if you sandbagged, your rating change remains small.

Of course, it would also boost sandbaggers rating gains due to 1300 vs (e.g.) 1700 wins, but, hmm.

Use max(team average, personal) as the rating value to determine your rating gain?

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

Leto

I don't care as much about winning or losing, I care about not getting stomped by the other team. Playing for fun, a close loss and a win are equally fun, often the loss is more fun if the win is a complete win, but losing a game where your team gets completely demolished is no fun at all.

Rogue at heart.

 

Okyl

My arena teams get our 10 games in each week.(only just started to class balance and be competitive, we started it as for fun with friends) All of us are more interested in pvp than pve and would skip a raid for pvp no questions asked. I really love the way arena is set up right now , but i wish the items were a little harder to achieve.

I am one of the rare people that likes that arena has a warrior/pally core.

Wsg is what we really like to do. Organized wsg matches are really intense and fun imo. we organize a wsg team just about everyday, not always perfect class balance but good enough that we dont have to worry when we get other teams.

Ab is ok, i think it is more fun if u Q in with 5 people rather than a full team or pugging solo. Ab is terrible for competitive pvp so we dont do it very often.

Av needs the most love from blizzard atm. I like the ideas oldmandennis offered.