New Arena Gear Rating Requirements

thevidon · 04/22/08, 4:22 PM

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Season 4 Rating Requirements and Arena Change

While Season 3 is still going strong, we wanted to announce ahead of time the rating requirements that will be present for arena items once Season 4 begins. We also wanted to give everyone a heads up to some changes that will be in an upcoming patch, altering how points are gained and players are matched in the arena system. The patch with these changes is scheduled to release before the start of Season 4.

First though, the rating requirement changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:

Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:

Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:

Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.

The changes to the rating requirements for these items reflect the nature of the items, their power, and the relative difficulty that should be had when attempting to obtain them. These items are comparable to those found in the newest 25 person raid zone, Sunwell Plateau, and should therefore also feel very challenging to obtain.

To help ensure that the challenge in obtaining these items stays true to those achieving these ratings, we'll also be implementing new rules with an upcoming patch to curb practices that undermine the core concepts of the arena system. These rules are as follows:

* If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.

This means that a player cannot join a highly rated team and begin earning points based purely on the pre-established rating of the team before they joined it. They'll need to compete, improve, and gain a personal rating worthy of the points they would receive.

* If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

This means that players cannot join a highly rated team and immediately face highly rated opponents, easily and quickly bringing their personal rating up. Instead they'll need to again compete, improve, and earn their rating.

We're excited to see these changes implemented, which will continue to emphasize the strong competitive nature of the arenas, and the challenge in obtaining the highest end rewards available for PvP.

aeon99 · 04/22/08, 5:10 PM

Good change for arena gear.
Dont know about honor items, not everyone plays arena who plays bg. Not enough thought of from Blizzards side imo.

Cebuu · 04/22/08, 5:35 PM

I logged in last night to do the pvp daily, only to see a Shaman with his Season 3 Elemental shoulders, followed by 0 other epic quality items. I think the changes will be welcomed by the more active portion of the arena community, but I think it will put a damper on a lot of casual teams who tank lower ratings.

As far as the changes to honor gear, I completely agree with them. Being able to jump from netherstorm quest greens into "Sunwell Equivalent" loot is pretty ridiculous.

Lezwyn · 04/22/08, 6:05 PM

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.

edit; fear there's another thread for this in public discussion. >.>

Tower · 04/22/08, 6:05 PM

Originally Posted by aeon99

Good change for arena gear.
Dont know about honor items, not everyone plays arena who plays bg. Not enough thought of from Blizzards side imo.

The honor gear is being used in the arena, in BGs and in casual PvE as they have very solid item levels and are easy to attain by yourself. Blizzard is just removing another aspect of "PvP to PvE" just on a smaller level. I like it.

Havok · 04/22/08, 6:19 PM

There's already a discussion here about this:

Season 4 PvP Changes

woeye · 04/23/08, 3:48 AM

I really believe it's time for a permament ladder system. Higher rating requirements are ok. But Team Selling, Win Trading and other abuses are not ok. You cannot introduce such rating requirements when the system is full of flaws.
If they want to add "competitive" rating requirement they should implement a competitive enviroment as well. Playing as a starter team against fully geared S3/4 teams is retared, sorry to say that. In every competitive sport on our planet there's a permanent ladder system. You start at the bottom and fight your way up. Every starter team get's a fair chance to train up and improve their skills on their way up.
Yes, most of the 2k+ rated players do have more skills. That is perfectly ok. But it makes really no sense to let those players play against newbies for points.

Argium · 04/23/08, 9:20 AM

Good change, late implementation. People have become too complacent with the current welfare epics situation and I honestly didn't expect them to address this before WOTLK, but it's pleasent to see this change. Definately something to work towards now, no more "10 games a week for points" syndrome.

woeye · 04/23/08, 12:05 PM

If you are fully geared in S3 already, fine. OF course players like you do welcome the change. Locking out new players and keeping the stuff for youself. But there will hardly be a reason for new players to play arena. In order to get better you gear you need the rating. But without that gear you will get ripped appart by fully geared teams.
I am not against rating requirements in general. But implementing those without addressing Win Trading, Team Selling and proper class balancing is not the way to go imho.

Humbaba · 04/23/08, 12:21 PM

They did make changes that will curtail point and team selling. Why buy a 2000 rated team if you're going to get your points from your 1450 personal rating? There's isn't much they can do about win trading other than having a good reporting setup on the backend and reviewing suspicious activity. They have been slowly addressing class balancing. I haven't heard many hunters complaining about the Aimed Shot healing debuff and I haven't heard many non-druids complain about druids losing the 15% speed set bonus or losing 10 yards off Cyclone range.

Ekimmu · 04/23/08, 5:43 PM

I like the changes, will actually make some people work for gear now.

KinetiK · 04/23/08, 9:31 PM

not worthy to post

Angeron · 04/24/08, 12:32 AM

Originally Posted by woeye

If you are fully geared in S3 already, fine. OF course players like you do welcome the change. Locking out new players and keeping the stuff for youself. But there will hardly be a reason for new players to play arena. In order to get better you gear you need the rating. But without that gear you will get ripped appart by fully geared teams.
I am not against rating requirements in general. But implementing those without addressing Win Trading, Team Selling and proper class balancing is not the way to go imho.

S3 gear will continue to not require rating and be availible for less points, seems like an easy and quick way to gear up the slots you can't get s4 in.

Tutanka · 04/24/08, 1:08 PM

I like the changes but 2200 is a prety serious score.....

Jehla · 04/24/08, 2:29 PM

One thing everyone seems to over look when saying "its good that you now have to work for PvP loot" is that PvE unlike PvP is static. And there are two reasons to introduce new gear, first being that it gives people something new to grind for and secondly it stops PvPers being thrashed by raiders.

These new rating requirements don't say "you have to be this good to get the gear" they are saying "you have to be this much better than everyone to get this gear".

This means that while in PvE you can progress through the dungeons its perfectly normal for your rating to stay more or less static in arena since as you get better so does everyone else.

So what happens when people that have no hope of getting to 1700 due to sub-optimal setup or just not being as good as other people when they get all they can from arena points? Well based on what I'll do (being stuck around the 1500 mark due to class limitations) people will simply quit arena on mass. This will set up a domino effect since people that were at higher ratings will forced down the ladder since the easier teams to beat no longer play. Then there is a good chance these people will make the same dissension the last lot of sub 1700s did and so the cycle continues.

Of course the other good reason why this is a bad idea is because why is it ok for one person to get the gear and one person not just because of the class they play?