New PVP Stuff - 2.4 And Beyond

[MrHat]

So, I've been watching the changes happening to PVP. 

(1) Blizzard looks like they're trying to get more and more people involved by reducing the barriers to entry (resilience) and making those items available to casual PvE players through badges and rep.  That's awesome.

(2) Blizzard has starting an Arena Only server where, for $20 bucks, over 6 weeks you may compete against other arena teams for a chance to win RL loot (75k grand prize).  They're really pushing this eSport thing.  This is a great idea, except that you have to be a currrent subscriber to do this.  The coolest part is you can make 3 max level chars that are fully decked out in PVP gear/enchants/gems and have some fun for $20.  Legitimized RMT imo.  If they dropped the current subscriber thing and had this going as 2-3 dedicated arena servers that are linked, it would do wonders.

(3) Why the fuck do we still have BG weekends and not BG weeks when we have dailys for honor and no more dimishing returns?

What else?

[Dren]

Agree, but the "no more diminishing returns" isn't in yet is it?  That comes in 2.4 unless I'm mistaken.  It is a bit too early to say they won't make a change to the holiday schedule.  I just wish that in whatever they do, make the current holiday a bit easier to find out in-game.  If there is currently an easy way to find out in-game, please to be telling me.

[Nebu]

3 max level characters... let's see: rogue, warlock, and mage/druid. 

Neat idea though I think this is bound to cause them trouble.  Involving real money in a game just seems like a recipe for disaster unless you're able to control all of the variables (i.e. like a LAN party).  Cheat programs, latency exploits, etc will become the norm.   

[Jayce]

Dren - just check out which "emissaries" are hanging out in the capitol cities.  Frostwolf, Defilers, Stormpike, Silverwing, etc.

Regarding the RMT aspect, it seems more to me that since they are boxing it to an Arena-only server, it won't affect anything on the "real" servers.  Except maybe the Arena queues.  Also, I suppose it could give "the rest of us" a chance, if all the really high-enders are off playing for real money.  If they are going to cheat, I'd rather see it there than on the real servers.  Also, $20/month/person may buy extra oversight; at least I'd hope that's where some of it goes.

[Dren]

Dren - just check out which "emissaries" are hanging out in the capitol cities.  Frostwolf, Defilers, Stormpike, Silverwing, etc.

Regarding the RMT aspect, it seems more to me that since they are boxing it to an Arena-only server, it won't affect anything on the "real" servers.  Except maybe the Arena queues.  Also, I suppose it could give "the rest of us" a chance, if all the really high-enders are off playing for real money.  If they are going to cheat, I'd rather see it there than on the real servers.  Also, $20/month/person may buy extra oversight; at least I'd hope that's where some of it goes.

Thanks I didn't realize those guys were tied to the holidays.

I also would expect that these special servers would be set up to be especially sensitive to cheating techniques of all kinds.  LAN parties couldn't be policed, but I don't know that they should be really.  They aren't all that much better than standard voice communications.

[Ratman_tf]

I am not a huge fan of RMT, but the premade Arena server sounds interesting. For 20 clams I might give it a whirl.

But I'm left wondering if the eSport deal (Which I am very skeptical about, what with lag and haxxors and whatnot) is going to devour the rest of the game. (Raid, casual PvE, etc...)

[MrHat]

Ya, I think they're taking the initiative now and seperating it from the rest of the game.  They've already started to implement Arena only rules (water drinking).

Also, as far as I can tell, the 6 week is for 'qualifiers' then the top for each region goes on to regionals @ blizzcon.

[Merusk]

Neat idea though I think this is bound to cause them trouble.  Involving real money in a game just seems like a recipe for disaster unless you're able to control all of the variables (i.e. like a LAN party).  Cheat programs, latency exploits, etc will become the norm.   

If they do it like the last tournament (at the end of season 1) then they WILL be in control of all the variables.  What they did was fly the top 5 (or was it 10?) teams out to the convention and they all fought on Blizzard-owned and run computers.   The kick to the balls was none of them were allowed to use anything beyond the native UI either.

  I vaguely recall hearing that even macros using the in-game setup were disallowed, but that seems silly.  I think it might have been that they had so little prep-time after sitting down at a 'puter that macros were infeesable, but not disallowed.

[Ratman_tf]

/charge
/petattack

Best done with an Owl.

*SCREECH!* *SCREECH!* *SCREECH!*

[Nebu]

If they do it like the last tournament (at the end of season 1) then they WILL be in control of all the variables.  What they did was fly the top 5 (or was it 10?) teams out to the convention and they all fought on Blizzard-owned and run computers.   The kick to the balls was none of them were allowed to use anything beyond the native UI either.

  I vaguely recall hearing that even macros using the in-game setup were disallowed, but that seems silly.  I think it might have been that they had so little prep-time after sitting down at a 'puter that macros were infeesable, but not disallowed.

I like it.  I like it a lot.  Seems like Blizz is covering their bases.  I should never doubt the ability of the borg.

[Merusk]

/charge
/petattack

Best done with an Owl.

*SCREECH!* *SCREECH!* *SCREECH!*

Well yeah, some are simple but there's folks with insane focus, retarget, assist chain macros that do all kinds of funky shit for them WITHOUT even getting into add-ons. I think those are the ones who were crying 'oh unfair!'

[MrHat]

Yup.

I use quite a few basic Rank 1/Max Rank and shift/alt/ctrl button modifiers so I don't have to go all the way to 5,6,7,8,9,0 if I want to hotbutton something.

If you're going to be competing, best try and do it macro free.

[Ratman_tf]

If you're going to be competing, best try and do it macro free.

It's safest for Blizz to keep any possible cheating out.
Cause if I lost out on a cut of 75k due to a hax, I'd be pretty irate.

[MrHat]

If you're going to be competing, best try and do it macro free.

It's safest for Blizz to keep any possible cheating out.
Cause if I lost out on a cut of 75k due to a hax, I'd be pretty irate.

narrator: And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you.

[Chimpy]

But I'm left wondering if the eSport deal (Which I am very skeptical about, what with lag and haxxors and whatnot) is going to devour the rest of the game. (Raid, casual PvE, etc...)

It has devoured the rest of the game. They are tweaking class mechanics for Arena PVP balance and many times it has a detrimental effect on the PvE game. Having the best weapons for PvE, and some of the best armor pieces as well come from Arenas is kind of saying "we don't care so much about anything outside of making Arena WoW an eSport".

[Righ]

It probably makes sense - at some point they will start transitioning the bulk of their content people form WoW to Runaway_MMORPG_Hit_2.0. Probably around 5-10 years before they plan on shipping this imagined future game.

[Dren]

It probably makes sense - at some point they will start transitioning the bulk of their content people form WoW to Runaway_MMORPG_Hit_2.0. Probably around 5-10 years before they plan on shipping this imagined future game.

Exactly what I was thinking.  At some point they had to start transitioning into a mode of perpetual sport activity since that allows less company generated content.  Those resources can then be directed towards "The Next Best Thing." 

If done right, it could really be a hit long term.  It has worked on freeplay platforms in the past, but this is for a subscription that also offers RL cash prizes seasonally.  I can see the potential for addiction levels never seen before.

I'm thinking that past the next expansion, you won't see much more content release outside of eSport.  Then the real whispers of the next MMO will start to creep in.  There might be more content patches, but only as required to stretch the timelines out to fit "The Grand Vision (of MMO Domination!)."

[Ratman_tf]

It has devoured the rest of the game. They are tweaking class mechanics for Arena PVP balance and many times it has a detrimental effect on the PvE game. Having the best weapons for PvE, and some of the best armor pieces as well come from Arenas is kind of saying "we don't care so much about anything outside of making Arena WoW an eSport".

Well, not being an uber-achiever, I haven't seen it yet. I've been happy to dink around with pre-raid PvE and some Battlegrounds lately.
I'm wondering about a huge game shift where the PvE game is totally removed and WoW becomes a bunch of Arena servers only. Granted that won't happen overnight, but it might happen eventually.

[Nebu]

I just wish someone had told me at the login screen that if I didn't play one of the chosen classes, that a large part of the endgame would be out of my reach.  I think that if I'm going to stay with this game that I'll be forced to play a rogue or warlock.  Decisions decisions.

[Rasix]

Don't you think that's a bit dramatic?  Is your goal with WoW to be one of the top rated arena teams? If no, why sweat it? Have fun, and give the middle finger to all of the FotM/template-to-win garbage.   Skill is still going to take you pretty far (which is why my first forays into arena pvp have been comical.  I am terrible).

Still, it's not like it takes you a long time to level. :)

[Nebu]

Don't you think that's a bit dramatic?  Is your goal with WoW to be one of the top rated arena teams? If no, why sweat it? Have fun, and give the middle finger to all of the FotM/template-to-win garbage.   Skill is still going to take you pretty far.

Still, it's not like it takes you a long time to level. :)

Wasn't meant to be dramatic.  Sorry about that.  I like playing the shaman, but it seems like there's not much to do without a group.  I guess I could respec back to enhance, get a new suit, and farm faction for a while.  If you look at the reality of it though, shamen just aren't competitive in small scale arena battles.  That being the case does limit the potential for what the toon can do barring changes to mechanics on Blizzard's end.

[Zetor]

Eh, my 3v3 'for fun' arena team has a pve resto shaman (yours truly), an elemental shaman and a shadowpriest in it -- if you asked any "serious pvper" they'd probably be doubting my sanity for running such a horrible makeup, and they'd be right! But, it's still fun fighting against other groups, even though I'm fairly sure we'll never get above 1760 (our current 'record'). There have been some off-the-wall teams I've fought too, like the "ghost wolf cavalry" (resto shaman, elemental shaman, enhancement shaman, all 3 starting in wolf-form and charging us).

There's being not competitive in the high-end, and there's being completely useless... for all the complaining I've done about WOW's serious balance issues, I wouldn't say pvping as any class is 'useless'. Except for maybe prot paladins and prot warriors, though I know someone who ran a protpally / rogue team and ended up beating a stupid number of melee-based teams (they came up against a 2-rogue team once who just locked down the pally, killed the rogue, and turned on the pally in a 2v1... the rogues lost. :P).

However, I definitely agree that high-end arena means cookie cutters, and currently the ONLY 3v3 cookie-cutters shaman work with require the shaman to be resto: retpaladin/warrior/shaman and healer/warrior/shaman (healer being a holy paladin or discipline priest for dispels). And there's the entire "lolRNG" factor that makes some matchups purely luck-based... which is kind of silly, would it really make tennis matches better if the players had a 5% chance on each serve (independent on actual skill) to automatically score a point?


-- Z.

[MrHat]

Don't you think that's a bit dramatic?  Is your goal with WoW to be one of the top rated arena teams? If no, why sweat it? Have fun, and give the middle finger to all of the FotM/template-to-win garbage.   Skill is still going to take you pretty far.

Still, it's not like it takes you a long time to level. :)

Wasn't meant to be dramatic.  Sorry about that.  I like playing the shaman, but it seems like there's not much to do without a group.  I guess I could respec back to enhance, get a new suit, and farm faction for a while.  If you look at the reality of it though, shamen just aren't competitive in small scale arena battles.  That being the case does limit the potential for what the toon can do barring changes to mechanics on Blizzard's end.

ALL the classes are 100% more fun in a group setting.  The problem is that you want to group only with friends.  So that being said, the barrier to entry is the Friends List/Guild, not the class at all.

[Nebu]

ALL the classes are 100% more fun in a group setting.  The problem is that you want to group only with friends.  So that being said, the barrier to entry is the Friends List/Guild, not the class at all.

Fair enough.  You, Kail, Righ, and I are all 70.  If we could find a time to be on simultaneously, we could all give a few things a go.  I think there are a number of people in the 60's now as well.  I guess we could always try some 2v2 in the arenas as well, but we'd need some voice com of some sort. 

[Chimpy]

ALL the classes are 100% more fun in a group setting.  The problem is that you want to group only with friends.  So that being said, the barrier to entry is the Friends List/Guild, not the class at all.

Fair enough.  You, Kail, Righ, and I are all 70.  If we could find a time to be on simultaneously, we could all give a few things a go.  I think there are a number of people in the 60's now as well.  I guess we could always try some 2v2 in the arenas as well, but we'd need some voice com of some sort. 

The built in voice chat is actually very good qaulity. Sounded just like our vent server, though I am sure not having the ability to adjust each person's volume independently could cause an issue in the long term, if you have a small group of people using it I am sure it would be just fine.

[Kail]

If we could find a time to be on simultaneously, we could all give a few things a go.

I'm good for whenever; saturday nights are the only ones I'm probably going to be busy on usually (this week I'm also busy friday, the 7th, I believe).

As for the new arena servers, I've got to wonder if part of that isn't for testing.  You don't, on the live servers, have an ideal environment for testing PvP class balance, but this new server would theoretically get rid of a lot of unbalancing factors (gear being the most obvious).  Now Blizzard can hold things more constant and get some numbers on how bad class XY and Z looses when they're up against a team of AB and C.

[Ralence]

As for the new arena servers, I've got to wonder if part of that isn't for testing.  You don't, on the live servers, have an ideal environment for testing PvP class balance, but this new server would theoretically get rid of a lot of unbalancing factors (gear being the most obvious).  Now Blizzard can hold things more constant and get some numbers on how bad class XY and Z looses when they're up against a team of AB and C.

  I"m not so sure it's going to be noticeable at all, the spec's will all be cookie cutter, and so will 95% of the teams.  There sure won't be any resto shaman in 2v2, it's just not an optimal build for a "competition", whereas they can have all the information they need from the live servers, where lots of people are playing "for fun" in 2 out of their 3 teams, and don't give a shit whether they win or not.

  It's not as if they're going to all of a sudden make resto shaman viable healers in 2v2 just because they're not very good there, or nerf druids because they are the kings.  We know there is imbalance already, and so do they.

  There's a reason that 40% of the 2v2 teams rated over 2200 are war+dru across all servers. Reference=http://www.realmhistory.net/arena-statistics/team-setup.html

[Xanthippe]

Wasn't meant to be dramatic.  Sorry about that.  I like playing the shaman, but it seems like there's not much to do without a group.  I guess I could respec back to enhance, get a new suit, and farm faction for a while.  If you look at the reality of it though, shamen just aren't competitive in small scale arena battles.  That being the case does limit the potential for what the toon can do barring changes to mechanics on Blizzard's end.

Do you want to actually play in arena?

I don't like arena, so I play the rest of the game without arena.  I level alts, and I get my battleground armor for playing battlegrounds.

Sure, I can't go 1v1 against some arena-armor-wearing opponent, and I don't dominate people the way I would if I was wearing arena armor.  But I tend to lose interest as I bump my armor up anyway, and switch to an alt.

For me, it's all about the getting there.  Being at end game is ok, but I don't raid, I don't instance much, and most of my crafting skills are maxed.  I like the economic game, until I get rich, and then I lose interest in that too.  I guess I could buy arena gear, but somehow I think I'd feel icky wearing it.

I guess this makes me a hardcore casual?

[Ratman_tf]

I guess this makes me a hardcore casual?

When WoW first came out, I was hoping that it would be a place for hardcore casuals. People who like to play, but just don't have an interest in extreme-raid-or-die. And in some ways, WoW did give us that. But it's still a place for the raiders and now arena participants. Those who don't do those activites are thrown the occasional bone, but it's definitley outside the scope of their major efforts.

I'm going to put myself out there and say that the possibility of the "next big thing" is a game like WoW, where the majority of the game's focus is on hardcore casuals. Put the big carrots out in the activites that HCC's do, and have raiding and PvP grinding as the alternate paths.

And I'm probably wrong, but it would be an interesting thing to see.

[Nebu]

Do you want to actually play in arena?

To be honest, I just want to play with a group of fun people.  We've been on this server for like 3 months and I've only ever grouped with guild folks like 2 or 3 times.  That was the entire reason I came to this server.  I've leveled two other toons on a pve server and I've really gotten bored with the solo game.  What Kail said really nailed it: I want to play the group game but I don't want to play in pugs... especially not as a resto shaman.  If I'm going to stare at health bars for hours, I don't want it compounded by teenage conversation. 

[Xanthippe]

Well, you sure levelled fast! :)

[Nebu]

I'd really love to play a priest, but I don't want to level it solo on a pvp server.   Lately I've been playing one on a PvE server.   It's a fun class. 

[MrHat]

I'd really love to play a priest, but I don't want to level it solo on a pvp server.   Lately I've been playing one on a PvE server.   It's a fun class. 

Was the ganking that bad leveling your shaman?

[Nebu]

Was the ganking that bad leveling your shaman?

I think it's the combination of downtime and re-doing content from 1-70 a 4th time.  As a priest at least I could fear stuff and run.   For me, PvE is a mindless diversion from the stress of my 12h+ days at work.  I don't want to have to think about it much.   Especially considering most classes could kick my ass even at the same level. 

I may give it a try anyway... but the thought of grinding 61-70 again does make me cringe. 

[MrHat]

Was the ganking that bad leveling your shaman?

I think it's the combination of downtime and re-doing content from 1-70 a 4th time.  As a priest at least I could fear stuff and run.   For me, PvE is a mindless diversion from the stress of my 12h+ days at work.  I don't want to have to think about it much.   Especially considering most classes could kick my ass even at the same level. 

I may give it a try anyway... but the thought of grinding 61-70 again does make me cringe. 

I completely agree.  I just hit 70 on my rogue, so that makes 3 70's for me.  Got bored immeadiately w/ my rogue, so I went and played my neglected paladin.  The leveling is so nice and fast, and if you shut off the chat windows, it's a completely different game, just nice and quiet.  So I can see the point of PvE.  But I never want to be stuck without the option of transferring a character to a server I may want to play on, and I love PVP more than anything else.

All my leveling has stalled around 61-62 as the giant fucking wall hits me in the face.