woeye

First, in all previous seasons it was not possible to buy previous non-sets. Only the latest non-set items were buyable. As it seems this is going to change in season 4 for the first time. Second, this information is not covered on the front page of the thread. It is convered somewhere deep in the thread (page 17 on the UK forums). Due to this I was misinformed and failed to understand what you were talking about (when the front page didn't said a word about S3 non-set items).

 

Methuselah

Three major issues have always been detrimental to the popularity and status of arenas in my opinion:

1) The latest season gear has been too widely available and has had no real gear progression ladder except the weapons and shoulders lately. Anyone can grind a base gear set (season one now) which is the way it has to be to provide an entry ticket. Stacking up 5k points and 75k honor one season and instantly get a multitude of items in the next one is not. Therefore the new rating requirements are definately in the right direction. They help to separate PvE and PvP achievements more clearly and it gives a better progression line for dedicated arena players.

=> Being solved

2) Boosting and point selling has always been an issue. Seen anyone with S3 shoulders wondering if they actually made it there on their own? Probably. And how fun is it to work up your rating one day only to be raped multiple times by a semi-professional full S3 team that has decided to rate up another new team? Not very fun without a matching algorithm taking gear level into account. Hopefully the new requirements for earning rating will help the issue.

=> Being solved maybe

3) Class imbalances and the importance of certain setups over skill are an issue and probably the single most important entry barrier for players that want to enter arena play. This is most prevalent in 2v2 where for instance resto druids, rogues and warriors have had an easier time gaining rating and therefore gear than several other classes. This situation has led many to skip 2v2 in favour of 3v3 and 5v5 where the fights are more dynamic and therefore less reliant on pure setup. Blizzard even admits they do not have the ambition nor see the possibility to fully balance 2v2 and suggests the other brackets as possibilities. However, this does not resolve the issue at all since 2v2 players will bring their high-end gear into the other brackets as well, which means class imbalances in one bracket will actually spill over into another. If 2v2 arenas can not be better balanced they should be shut down in favour of another bracket.

=> Unresolved

 

Kaber

I actually disagree. Current point sellers in general hover in the 1900-2000 bracket (give or take). They are generally people who have nothing left to buy with honor and have no ambitions to make Gladiator (whether it is because they run a sub-optimal setup, do not have the skill, or do not have the teammates). So at this point, they have no more need of Arena points. What is left to do? Sell points. It will still be possible to sell your services to people, it will just require that 2 of you play with that person to ensure their rating does not drop 150 points below the team rating. They will still be capable of selling people points, and once they get someone up to their desired rating, they can freely leave the team and do it again, coming back to play lower rated teams (since it uses the average) to get the highly rated point buyer his weekly games. Since these sellers have nothing to buy, what does it matter to them if they only get points for a 1550 rating?

 

telcontar

The problem for a point seller is that his clients start out at 1500 PR and have no reason to just buy points from his 2k rated team.
They will only get ~300 points, as if the TR was at 1500, since their PR is at 1500. Now, he'll have to be a PR booster instead, playing with the buyers. This will take a lot more time to do, and most people will probably only take on one or two clients a week instead of 10 or 12.

 

Karoo

Call me crazy but I believe I am wearing an s2 ring (veteran's) and an s3 ring (vindicator's) both of which were purchased with honor well after s3 started. In fact I never PvP'd until after s3 started. I also recall seeing every other off piece (boots, belts, bracers) with the veteran's (s2) tag on them for purchase through honor points as well.

And I am fairly certain you can also still buy s1 offset (general's) items with honor. Unless this was very recently (within the last 3 weeks) changed.

So unless I am mistaken it has always been possible to buy a previous seasons off set pieces through honor. I can't check right now as I am at work.

 

RaKazu

I'm certainly not a great pvp'er and these changes are just going to kill my interest in arena. I play on my alt with a friend and we can hit 1600 on a good week. So I'll get my gloves, legs, and maybe chest. Then what? Keep playing so fully geared out teams can kick our head in? Can't save up for that S3 weapon, not high enough rating, go afk in a BG for S2 gear. I would hate to think what a fresh 70 is going to have to go through if they want to do arena and do halfway well. I understand trying to restrict the gear, but this is getting silly.

 

Broncojohnny

This illustrates what people have said repeatedly. Casual arena players aren't going to que to get beat without some incentive. The entire system will suffer for it. I know a lot of people who play casually, on the order of 15 players or so. I can't find one who says he/she will participate in season 4. This should concern people, instead it is met with elitist nonsense about "scrubs" and anecdotal evidence as to how every class can make the ratings because it happens once in a while.

 

rehtonAesoohC

I think you're ignoring the spirit of the arena... The intent of the arena was not so people could farm "welfare epics" and solo queue every week for free points. It's intended as a fight-to-the-death battle where you fight for your life. I faced a few solo queue'rs, and while those matches are free points, that wasn't what was fun for me. I don't arena because I want the points, I arena because I like the thrill of being in a deathmatch against 3 other people.

The real downside is that your performance in the arena directly impacts your future performance in that the more points you get, the more gear you get, and therefore, indirectly, the better you get. Someone else here mentioned that arena gladiators should be equipped by the goblins before they start a match... I wholly agree with that idea.

 

whysoez

the problem is that, to use your term, the people who say they won't participate is anecdotal evidence as well. just because people say something doesn't make it true. this is true with any statistic of course, but it's especially true in WoW and probably other MMO's. when things don't go the way people want them to, they complain or give up, which is counter-intuitive to the purpose of competition and most games in general. if something is too hard, that should give you incentive to get better because it's challenging. nearly every 1850/2k+ rated player will tell you that they started with low ratings and it took them awhile to improve. when i first started doing 2's/3's in s3 (previously i had only done s1, i skipped most of s2) i noticed how challenging it was in the low brackets. the 1500s were the new 1700s. while it may be discouraging to people who excel in BG's and automatically assume that they can apply that experience to Arena and succeed, the fact is that Arena is an entirely different beast and provides a challenge that BG's do not, and most likely cannot. when BG's came, it killed world pvp. Arena's will most likely never replace BG's, but it's certainly the way that true, competitive PVP is heading.

in short, give it a shot. maybe you don't like playing the game competitively in PVP, in which case I would say that PVP is probably not for you. people should not be able to have access to such high-end gear by simply showing up. even before the honor system changed, you had to be competitively doing BG's to get access to better gear. they altered that, and then came the age of welfare epics. so they're changing it back (in a different way) to make that gear competitively achievable.

 

holydevil

I think the rating requirement is a great idea but not given the realities that currently exist. As has been mentioned, some classes have a much easier time getting to 2200 than others. The crazy imbalances need to be addressed if they do this. I'm so frustrated at the fact that I have 40 played days on my paladin and kind of feel compeled to play a druid now outside of 5s.

I don't understand why balance has to wait for WOTLK. I don't have a nice analogy but most businesses don't operate by acknowledging a problem with a frequently used product and then refuse to attempt to address it because a replacement is *only* a half a year away.

Given their apathy and attitude towards class balance, does anyone have any anxiety about leveling 10 levels just to find that your class isn't viable is most brackets?

 

whysoez

why? i see 2000+ rated paladin teams all the time in 2's. i run with a resto shammy and we lose to a pally/war team sometimes. i've seen every class at 1850+ with some sort of class combination. unfortunately there's really only a couple viable specs for each class (some only have 1), but it's really a matter of choosing the correct comp and knowing how to play it.

 

Broncojohnny

True about the anecdotal evidence. But at some level when you see a lot of people saying the same thing, you have to believe it to be at least partially true.

Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that people want something for nothing. That is just human nature. So which piece of anecdotal evidence will you go with? The one that says "all classes can make a 2000 rating, when the going gets tough people work harder"? Or, the one that says "when the going gets tough people give up"? I am inclined to believe that many will do just what they say they will do and simply give up, especially when you consider that there are many things to do in this game and arena forms a small part. One thing is virtually certain to me, arena participation will not increase with this change. Magnitude of that effect will determine how this will affect the system and is anyone's guess. Personally, I think it will be a disaster, just my opinion though, we will see.

As for me and my PVP experience, I like the battlegrounds a lot more than arena. However, I refuse to spec as a frost mage for arena. I don't particulary like playing a frost build. With the proposed changes and no rewards available, I'll just not que for the arena anymore and use that time for another night of raiding, it's really not that big of a deal for me. I will say that if I ever level a rogue or warlock I would give arena a shot with those classes.

 

Rudegirl

Because shoulders require 2,2k rating and that kind of rating requires top skill and probably tier 6 gear for a holypaladin in any serious battlegroup. My druid is soon 70 also, unless blizzard makes some strategical balancing moves then i have no choice but to retire my paladin and play the druid.

 

whysoez

i'm inclined to agree with the bolded part, but in my eyes that's against the spirit of competition, WoW, and games in general. it's true you can't appeal to every type of audience, but if everything was handed to you on a silver platter, it wouldn't be worth achieving. there's plenty of things you have to grind for in the game, and this is just another type of grind, albeit less quantitative.

/shrug. you're willing to give up because you won't have your s3 shoulders (not that huge of an upgrade from s2 mind you) and full s3 otherwise? or are you suggesting that more than a small minority should have access to the s4 shoulders? that kind of defeats the purpose of the challenge if you ask me.

 

Rudegirl

I already have my season 3 shoulders, and yes season 4 will be a mariginal upgrade from season 3 - but if nobody is willing to fight for them that also defeats the whole purpose of the challenge and hence the rating requirement?

My problem is that 2,2k is more out of reach for the average paladin as opposed to the average player of class X, paladins at large are in a very peculiar situation where the only true viability lies in holy for 5v5. Playing in cyclone means top 20 if you get 2,2k rating in 5on5, i already have that - but it´s harder to get 2,2k in 5on5 then any other bracket. And as a paladin, it´s close to impossible to get 2,2k rating in the two other brackets compared basicly any other class.

Basicly, blizzard has to do more for arena balance then they are doing right now - and should do that before upping the rating requirements.

 

Kaber

Indeed. These changes are going to severely narrow the number of teams, and thus the rating each team can achieve. I think the people that believe they will still be capable of hitting their current ratings in S4 are going to be in for a rude awakening. If you look at what a lower Arena population does to certain EU servers, you will find the most highly rated teams barely break 2k if they are top 10 teams. If I recall correctly one of the Battle Groups had trouble getting their top teams above something along the lines of 1800, simply because there were not enough teams to gain rating from. I do not forsee quite as large a shift as this, but I do not expect to be able to make the same rating next season because the competition will be much more fierce. Once people hit their rating wall for a few weeks, you can expect those players to just fall away or turn into point/rating buyers (or sellers if they get high enough). I would be surprised to find even the top 10 teams in each bracket to all have 2200+ ratings.

 

◊ Vain

I don't see why this matters. If even the top teams can't get shoulders, it means they won't be fighting other teams with shoulders either, so it'll still be even. Gear being harder to get affects both teams playing in an arena battle equally if their ratings are similar, so the net effect there is zero. This will also have no effect on who gets gladiator/duelist/etc. titles, as that is percentage based.

The people this does affect are those who are playing solely to get gear and who don't care about playing for the competition.

 

Meddler

The big issue that leaps to mind here though is alternative sources of gear. If PVE gear is superior in a certain slot to the next best alternative to the unavailable PVP gear then you end up with the old situation of having to do high end PVE content to maximise competitiveness in PVP, generally accepted as a less than ideal situation. I wouldn't expect this to be a major issue with the S4 shoulders in this example, it's assumedly a pretty small amount of stats compared to the S3 ones, but as a general principle the risk is there for future developments.

 

Touf

I think all they have to do is add non-rated identical gear for (some amount, maybe double) more points. If you're serious you can get the cheap stuff, if not you'll get it eventually. I think that's fine for everyone. You can talk about scrubs, but they're not going to finish the set at 300 points a week. All they have to do after that is fix win trading and it's perfect.

 

Duncan

Let's say it won't be a problem to get 4/5 S4 for almost everyone - the rating requirements for everything except shoulders and weapon are mediocre.

Let's compare Druid spaulders for S1-S3

S1 21Int 33Sta 46heal 4mp5 20res
S2 21Int 39Sta 51heal 4mp5 20res
S3 24Int 43Sta 57heal 5mp5 20res

Let's asume the gain is aproximatly 1Int 5Sta 5heal per Season.

That means someone in 4/5 s4 with S3 spaulders has about 1Int 5Sta 5heal less than someone in full S4. And that's going to make a difference ? Not really.


I like the new system, simply because i like to compete for gear, not just getting it by pure pressence. Sure it might kill Arena for people once they got ~1600, because they can't improve. But where's the difference to people that have to stop raiding after T4/mid T5 because they can't improve ?
It will be harder to get a specific rating because there are less mediocre teams to queue against for easy points. But there will also be less bored full S3/4 people pushing teams to sell them. And queuing against mediocre teams won't happen past 1900 anyways, at least not for a lot of points, nor on a regular basis to really make a difference.

The main problems now are win trading, team selling and - IMHO - to easy gear for everyone, not because i'm elitist or something, but because it doesn't give a feeling of improving your character into something worthy if anyone else don't even has to try a little bit to improve to achieve the same - it will happen, just a few month later, but still.

The alterantive source of gear - PvE - is fine for me. I don't raid anymore, but if people have enough time for it to do so: they achieved it, they deserve it.

 

Telyz

Another suggestion could be make Arena gear only usable in Bg's and Arena so ppl dont cry that they have t5 Quality gear in PvE by just dong 10 games a week.

 

Cos-

No, wow pvp is just not that fun on its own, and people get t5 quality gear spending 2 hours in ZA a week.