Keline

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....88839577&sid=3

Since most of you won't be able to read that, summary:

There'll be a patch on June 13th (so June 12th for the US servers) and with that patch the new season will start.

Ratings will be reset to 1500.

Players that have participated in 20% of the seasons total games will receive the rewards

That patch will introduce new high level, epic arena rewards as well as new epic honor rewards (Verbatim translation bolded, that's exactly what he said)

 

csulok

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...geNo=1&sid=1#0
Here's an english speaking version.

Did you bold those parts because the new epic honor rewards aren't high level? I wouldn't read very much into it. Personally I'm more excited about the names the new General's armor will get than what percent they get buffed. Is there any info about these? I've only seen the Merciless Gladiator setbonuses so far.

 

• Calantus

-_-

None of them better require WSG tokens I swear to God...

 

Ragnor

I guess they have to keep interest in 2 year old battlegrounds somehow. Any word on if they are actually adding healing plate to the honor reward vendors since at the moment there is only ret and +dmg plate available.

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Konstantin

Those reward will keep coming as people get more and more of those that already exsist

 

yuri

Now interesting questions are:

Will there be new arena rewards as well(actually seems like there should be according to the arena faq, would be kinda cool if old pieces were updated but i doubt it)?
Will those cost more points?
Will more points be awarded in next season ?

Neither of those question is really answered in german or english post.

 

Kardinalen

It's going be a hoot to farm for the new honor-rewards with the new matchmaking system.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

For some reason they decided that only druids heal in battlegrounds so we're the only ones with healing marshall/general gear. I hope that gets corrected with the new season rewards

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• frmorrison

I am surprised they are giving new honor (from BG) rewards. The honor epics are already ilevel 123, so I assume that means just more healing items, and perhaps covering other slots like the wand and relic.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing more just straight up higher level items.

 

Bibdy

You get ranged weapons from arena rewards so I doubt they'll add honour ones as well.

Oh and WOOHOO!

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Braids

I think "new" Honor rewards means the pure +heal items (such as caster bracers) that the Devs have promised for so long (harhar). I'm personally hoping for new PVP gems that are non unique and are more slanted with STA/Resilience/X (where X is something like crit, dmg, etc.).

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Cagalli

I'm expecting at least a new epic ring from the honor rewards, shouldn't be using a level 67 epic ring forever.

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Mezmaron

Well since they are updating arena gear it would make sense they intro new epic (not blue set) pieces of armor to correspond to the current epic stuff you can get. Otherwise how are your pvp boots/bracers/neck/belt etc. going to keep pace with pve raiding upgrades?

 

Bibdy

And if they didn't add it, how would they keep us busy?!

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Faerun

Has there been anything stated about whether you have to play the last week in order to be eligible for a netherdrake? Because I'm gone on vacation 100% of that last week (GG Blizz) and all 3 of my teams are in netherdrake spots... yeah, I'd be pretty pissed.

 

yuri

I remember reading a sticky saying that regardless whether you played the last week or not as long as you have the required % of total games of the team you will receive the netherdrake. I have browsed through varieties of stickies now but still couldn't find confirmation.

edit: Found the post where i read it, unfortanetly no blue confirmation.

 

◊ Malan

The most recent post I can think of said that players just needed to have played 20% of the games in the team.

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Spades

I know they're upgrading the arena armor and as such one should save their arena pennies until the 12th, but what about the arena weapons? Are those getting updated?

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CasT

I for one sure hope the add something to the new give the taste for the new BG system As it is now, we only meet harder opponents but the rewards still suck big ass.

This system has really only increased our guilds lust for arena, since you don't get anything for hourgames in wsg. . .

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

 

yuri

I have been wondering about whether to upgrade armor or not.

On one side there is the idea of buying things now giving me an advantage for next season making it easier to go to a high ranking faster. Also if the new items are horridly expensive and only little upgrade it would be better to get them now.

On the other side if the new items are a significant upgrade and not significantly more expensive than the current ones it would be alot better to wait for the new season and then buy the items.

I am just waiting desperatel for some specifics on stats and price of new items.

 

Maynard

Perhaps I'm putting a bit too much faith in Blizzard, but the most intuitively correct pricing system to me seems to be to add an additional tier, but have that tier require the previous tier + the cost of the tier 4 item.

E.g.:

Tier 4 PvP gloves: 1125 points
Tier 5 PvP gloves: T4 + 1125 points
Tier 6 PvP gloves: T5 + 1125 points

The idea of the system is to match PvE progression, and to simply remove Tier 4 and add Tier 5 at the same price would be like removing Karazhan through to Magtheridon and forcing fresh players to learn the new content in Tier 3. Of course, this system prevents a barrier to entry for collecting Tier 5 gear - but this is no different to the challenges facing a fresh 70 in entering high end PvE content.

Admittedly, I'm still not spending my Hunter's 2,000 points until I see exactly what they do.

 

Keline

That's hardly a good solution for new players. They'd be too far behind top players for too long. I know that you're top already and this would hardly bother you, but why exactly are you so afraid of new players that you'd want to keep them down that hard? The reason why good PVP gear should be avaialble to everyone and PVE progression works the way it does is because players are matched against players and not againsted raid encounters tuned to their lower gear level.
Besides, at that rate it would be impossible to obtain T6, as you'd need 21375 AP for just the set. That is somewhere between half and a full year for 90% of the teams. WoW definatly shouldn't become a newbie-hostile game, it certainly wasn't before BC.

 

Grunge

The inherent problem here lies that in pve progress is linear for your character, in pvp it's a dot.

Let's say a new player levels himself to 70. To get him into your BT raid he needs gear, which he can acquire by boe/bop craftables and by doing some lower tier instance (which by BT time you can clear even if a few of your players are "crippling" the raid). He'll also get his tier 4-5 equivalent gear faster than older characters got theirs since everyone probably has it already.

However in pvp a new player levels to 70. Grinds HWL set+non-set honor epics. I'm pretty sure he'll be rather gimped in terms of stats vs people with t5-t6 arena gear.
Now since he's gimped his team will be "suffering" because of him. After all gear does play a rather significant part in pvp. So he won't reach xxxx rating and will get less arena points than the older/higher teams. Which means he won't be able to purchase his t4 arena set upgrade it to t5 and then t6 until we're well into the next season/expansion/whatnot.

That's why requiring lower tier arena gear+the same cost as others...is very counterproductive to competitive pvp.

I'd prefer a small discount if you're upgrading from the t4 arena set, or alternatively a flat out trade t4->t5. But then we'd run out of things to buy with the points so that's not going to happen. Oh well, time will tell.

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Gods glory to the Heroes.

 

Maynard

Point inflation might help, then. Simply increase the # points gained each season by however many is necessary, or reduce the cost of initial tiers by x%; e.g. T4 = 800, T5 = T4 + 1000, T6 = T5 + 1200 etc. The "spirit" of the idea was to provide some barriers to entry and allow some form of PvE-like progression.

Other solutions proposed seem to involve "make all gear redundant every three months" or "allow free/cheap trade-ins providing no incentives at the high end".

Why the venom? I'm not trying to keep any one down. In fact my main is in a mere 1600 2v2 and hasn't even got his first piece of gladiator gear yet.

 

Keline

I see - why do you care then when you hardly play Arena matches then? I doubt you're that bad a player that you can't get a high rating. You'd not be posting here.

Grunge also didn't mention one important aspect: a new recruit can make up for his inferior gear by going max potion power on content where his gear might not be enough. That's out of the question in the arena.
WoW should remain a game where someone fresh at 70 can make huge progress in a short timespan simply by being exceptionally skilled. That's a given in PVE, someone joining a BT / Hyjal guild will pick up SSC TK loot within a few weeks.
Why an artificial block on PVP then, it's not exactly like you need T4 to do T5 in PVE either, new realm guilds clearing BWL in 90% Blue equipment and Patchwerk a few weeks later last year were proof enough of that.