Arena Season 4 - no more welfare epics

[Register]

WoW *HAD* the right idea initially.  Player and Monster levels are pretty near equal, so fighting a player was supposed to be as hard as fighting a monster, just requiring a better use and understanding of your classes skills. (Since humans aren't idiot AI.)   There's been plenty of stories about guys 3-4 levels lower raping face on lousy PVPers.  However, Blizzard failed as soon as they started giving-in to achiever mentality and mudflation.   When you have a new level 70 with a 96dps weapon and 5khps they're going to be nothing but fodder for the 135dps, 11khps+ guys.

Item-centric PVP is as lame as level-centric PVP.  It's even worse than level-centric PVP in a game where aquiring equipment pairity takes you longer than leveling-up the character in the first place.

My advise would be to stop lvling at 69 instead of 70.

At 69 you can BG EOTS, AB and WSG in the 60-69 bracket vs people of equivalent gear and purchase and bank S1 gear. The difference between S1 to S3 is not that huge, and players will be able pvp if they paused to clock up some gear before they ding 70.

And a full set of S1 armor (Chest, head, leg, shoulders, hands) cost about 65K honor - by completing dailies and converting excess marks of honor via the "For Great Honor" quest one should be able to get about 7-15k honor in a single weekend of gaming - its still a grind, but its doable unlike the old honor system where working adults have practically no chance of getting any stuff from rank 11 and above.

[Kail]

My advise would be to stop lvling at 69 instead of 70.

At 69 you can BG EOTS, AB and WSG in the 60-69 bracket vs people of equivalent gear and purchase and bank S1 gear. The difference between S1 to S3 is not that huge, and players will be able pvp if they paused to clock up some gear before they ding 70.

Problem is that the queue times (on my groups anyway) for sub-70 BGs are far higher than for the seventy BGs.  I had a lot of fun running AV at 60 (run to Outland for an hour or two and you get stuff that's competitive with high end pre-BC raid gear), but the queue times were thirty or forty-five minutes.  Ding 61, and queue times drop down to less than a minute, but it's back to being killed in stunlock by rogues with dual warglaives.

[Valmorian]

Also, I'm not advocating an FPS.  MMO's are very much akin to an FPS/TBS hybrid.  I think they have value in this as a slower paced, strategy based pvp game.  I believe it's possible to have a game with both successful pve as well as pvp, it just hasn't been created yet. 

The aspects I am referring to with the FPS angle is that player skill becomes more important than equipment, and weapons and armor are all side-grades. 

With respect to PvE, you would be dooming the game to have no character power progression.  That might be what you want, but it is pretty important to a lot of players to feel that their character is getting more powerful.

[Nebu]

With respect to PvE, you would be dooming the game to have no character power progression.  That might be what you want, but it is pretty important to a lot of players to feel that their character is getting more powerful.

I agree that this is what players want.  My alternative would be something along the lines of Mario.  If gear were less important, then players would be forced to rely on player skill for not only success in pve but in pvp situations as well.  I think a game that was able to generate pve encounters interesting enough that not every player could successfully navigate them, then the game would retain interest.  Sadly, the reason MMOs have continued to succeed is because most players lack this type of skill and instead prefer that they are rewarded for time invested rather than prowess at the game.  WoW has come a long way in promoting this type of system, but still relies heavily on the gear grind to augment player success. 

Yes, what I want is niche.  I came to grips with this long ago. 

[Typhon]

[...]  Sadly, the reason MMOs have continued to succeed is because most players lack this type of skill and instead prefer that they are rewarded for time invested rather than prowess at the game.[...]

Short version:
I think your assessment that gear is sought out by folks who are poor at PvP is flawed.

Long version:
Diku players like to feel that their characters are progressing.  Getting cool stuff is just an alternate progression.  PvE teaches a player that they can win 99% of the time.  Raiding teaches players that they can see and get cool stuff, but they need to rely upon other people (extroverts do not see this as a bad thing).  Raiding enthusiasts like to conquer a map/boss/item progression so they can see new things and kill them.  PvE/Raiders see PvP as something to do while wiating for new content.

PvP enthusiasts enjoy the thrill of beating a worthy opponent.  An opponent you beat 100% of the time is not worthy.  A PvP enthusiast will play the same maps ad infinitum because the difference is more in the way the match unfolds, not in the way the map looks - in fact the PvP enthusiast would rather that there were a limited number of maps, so that they can gear up, er, learn the map to gain an advantage against someone who didn't know the maps as well.  A PvP enthusiast will grind on his skills until they are completely reflexive, and all he need think about during combat is tactical awareness.  A PvP enthusiast will optimizme his chances for winning in any way possible, because he knows that his enemies will also be optimizing their chances for winning.  In a game with gear, or some other grindable advantage, a PvP enthusiast will grind with the best, most broken PvE grinders... because even a small edge in PvP can be deciding.

[Nebu]

Short version:
I think your assessment that gear is sought out by folks who are poor at PvP is flawed.

That wasn't my assessment at all.  My point was that most people aren't good at gaming (just as most people aren't good at driving a car).  Gear overcomes their deficiencies.  If a player can commit enough time, their gear will allow them to beat people regardless of skill. 

PvP enthusiasts enjoy the thrill of beating a worthy opponent.

I wish that I believed this, but I don't.  The majority of people that play on pvp servers or even that play pvp games want simply to win.  Crushing opponents is even better.  This is why you see the great abundance of gray ganking and attacking solos with superior numbers.  I've been playing every MMO available to date on the pvp server and found this to be almost nearly universal. 

[Tarami]

[...] A PvP enthusiast will grind on his skills until they are completely reflexive, and all he need think about during combat is tactical awareness.  A PvP enthusiast will optimizme his chances for winning in any way possible, because he knows that his enemies will also be optimizing their chances for winning.  In a game with gear, or some other grindable advantage, a PvP enthusiast will grind with the best, most broken PvE grinders... because even a small edge in PvP can be deciding.

Because ol' classic Grand Marshals aren't broken. They just like the challenge. You do realise the easiest way to win is to play against inferior players? Sportsmanship barely exists in real sports, I can't see how you can assume it exists online.

[Typhon]

I never said anything about Grand Marshalls or sportsmanship.  I gave the extremes from a PvE-centric and PvP-centric views.  There are also the "I like causing other people greif"-centric views and the "I didn't get enough nipple time so I need to win in this game to feel important"-centic views as well.  The latter, in general, gives rise to the Grand Marshalls and the cat-assing to get the best gear to have an advantage.  Unfortunately the latter two tend to cause people to play with the same focus.

I guess what my poorly-stated point should have been is this: gear for folks who are PvE'ing has a different purpose then does gear for folks who are PvP'ing.

I think that the gear mechanism for PvP is backwards - better gear should be given to the less-able players, to artificially handicap the better players.  Instead of what is being said below: crappy players get good gear so they can beat the hell out of better players - note that I'm not saying this doesn't happen, gear is so important in this game that a well-geared bottom of the barrel player will beat the hell out of a poorly geared good player... but honestly, how long does a good player have crap gear?  Not everyone is in the top teir gear, so that good player is going to be able to beat the masses, get the honor, and gear up.

I'm not arguing that the current system isn't broken, I am arguing that the crappy player with uber gear is not a majority of the playerbase, mostly you have better-then-average players with better then average gear because time played (at PvP) does have an impact on player ability (the more you play, the better you get).

[Tarami]

No, the crappy player with zomgloot isn't commonplace. That is true. I don't know if it even exists, realistically anyone should be able to learn enough not to be a complete tool at PvP.

But, my point is this; regardless of your skill, or your grit, or any of the progression axis you as a person can advance on (except maybe catassing), you will always be at the mercy of itemisation. Once you've begun to level out skillwise, any upgrade is worth more than maybe dozen and again dozen of hours of playing.

In short - your skill gain from grinding for a new PvP item is most likely entirely dwarfed by the augmentation you receive from said item. Which encourages grind and easy wins, not personal improvement.

Edit;
Hume wouldn't like this discussion.

[Nebu]

In short - your skill gain from grinding for a new PvP item is most likely entirely dwarfed by the augmentation you receive from said item. Which encourages grind and easy wins, not personal improvement.

Thank you for this.  I couldn't have stated it more clearly. 

[Register]

Problem is that the queue times (on my groups anyway) for sub-70 BGs are far higher than for the seventy BGs.  I had a lot of fun running AV at 60 (run to Outland for an hour or two and you get stuff that's competitive with high end pre-BC raid gear), but the queue times were thirty or forty-five minutes.  Ding 61, and queue times drop down to less than a minute, but it's back to being killed in stunlock by rogues with dual warglaives.

Yea noticed that the lower BGs does have significantly less people queuing for it. All boils down to how high the pvp population is for your battlegroup I guess - for Bloodlust which I am now on, the PVP population is rather high, so the queues are mostly fast and furious even on sub 70 bgs.

[Register]

In pre TOA DAOC, Players were mostly even gear wise - crafted and enchanted armor and weapons were relatively affordable and easily attained.

But then the game have to offer the players alternative advancement beyond the gear - which is the Realm abilities system where you get points after you attain higher realm levels from killing players, and use these points to purchase special stat buffs and abilities.

End result is much of the same - hardcore players grind Emain (pvp frontier zone) and got so many realm abilities that they have a huge advantage vs casuals. Worse still, many hardcore player dual boxed buff bots that made the statistical difference even greater. It is technically possible for an average player with heaps of time to grind to realm rank 8+, and a good player at realm rank 1 with the same equipment would probably be destroyed.

Point is - character advancement is the lynch pin of most MMORPGs, and this advancement is mostly underscored by time sunk. A casual player will always be at a disadvantage when matched against the hardcore catass.

[Litigator]

I don't like arena, and now I like it even less.

I thought it was a great way to give people who like to duel somewhere to do that, but now arena has become the focus of pvp.

I want to see more battlegrounds with different pvp objectives.  Arena is too artificial - it ensures a focus on certain classes with certain specs.

If players really want to see how skilled they really are, they should play naked arena.

The new arena changes do a lot to discourage people from team hopping and point selling.

For one thing, the market in high-ranked teams is going to drop, because a new player on a high level team can no longer get high-level points off of it. Before, a lot of gladiator type players would run a team up to 2000 or so, sell it to some scrubs, and the scrubs would ride it back down, playing 10 a week and taking points.  Now that you get points off your PR if it is more than 150 below the TR, there will be no market for this, which will stop the gladiators from rerolling all the time.  Also, if the gladiators leave their team, when they come back to it, if their average personal rating is 150 below the team rating, they'll have to fight scrub teams and risk 30 points each game to get 3 or 4, until they get back into the proper PR range. This strips the incentive for point selling, and penalizes team-hopping.

Second, there are a lot of people who ground S1 in BGs this season and they are likely to want to go and try to get s3 from arenas instead of grinding s2 in more BGs. There are a lot of people who still need S3 stuff in the lower ranks, and S4 gloves, thrown weapons, wands and offhands will be available with no PR, and pants will require only 1550. So a lot of people will be able to get 2/5 s4 and the offhand type stuff. And the S3 gear is very good, and there are a lot of people who don't have it yet. 

Hopefully the impact of the PR ratings dissuading people from competing in S4 will be outweighed by the other changes encouraging new competitors to join the system.  Of course if you're wearing worse than S1 you're not gonna be getting a whole lot of loot in the arena.

And for those who got 4/5 S3, 1700 to replace those 4 pieces is an attainable target.

[Fordel]

In pre TOA DAOC, Players were mostly even gear wise - crafted and enchanted armor and weapons were relatively affordable and easily attained.

But then the game have to offer the players alternative advancement beyond the gear - which is the Realm abilities system where you get points after you attain higher realm levels from killing players, and use these points to purchase special stat buffs and abilities.

End result is much of the same - hardcore players grind Emain (pvp frontier zone) and got so many realm abilities that they have a huge advantage vs casuals. Worse still, many hardcore player dual boxed buff bots that made the statistical difference even greater. It is technically possible for an average player with heaps of time to grind to realm rank 8+, and a good player at realm rank 1 with the same equipment would probably be destroyed.

Point is - character advancement is the lynch pin of most MMORPGs, and this advancement is mostly underscored by time sunk. A casual player will always be at a disadvantage when matched against the hardcore catass.

The saving grace of RA's was they weren't linear (I believe that is the word to use here). There was a rough break even point, and that point was very much obtainable. It still has the retarded mechanic of 'paying your dues' in place, but in a mitigated way.

BuffBots were just retarded in almost every way. Might as well added the ability to inflate your characters level to 60 in DaoC for an extra 10 dollars a month.

[Arrrgh]

I have capped honor points and close to capped arena points. I'm thinking of saying to hell with S4 and just saving up the points for level 80. Anyone know of a reason that wouldn't work?

[Gobbeldygook]

I have capped honor points and close to capped arena points. I'm thinking of saying to hell with S4 and just saving up the points for level 80. Anyone know of a reason that wouldn't work?

1. The cost of honor gear will continue to scale up to level 80, so the actual 'value' of your 75k honor points will go down vs just spending it now.
2. All you'll be able to buy are maybe the gloves and pre-wotlk gear.

[Fordel]

We also have no idea how they'll handle the 80 PvP rewards. Plus it'll be like, a year away still, it's Blizzard.

[Merusk]

And that's assuming they don't just wipe Honor/ Arena points like they did previously.  Tho that happened at the release of the "honor as currency" system, iirc.

[Chimpy]

Basically, the whole "Personal Rating resets when you leave a team" is the biggest flaw in the Arena scheme. 2k+ teams basically will be fucked if one person quits or transfers on them because they wont be able to get someone (even if they had been on a 2k team before) to join and help them unless they NEVER LOSE.

One of our rogues was 2240 rated and his mage team-hopped and came back and they were getting 1pt a win and lost one to a D/C mid fight and they lost 32 points. He went apeshit and disbanded his team because they basically lost a chance at Gladiator titles because their mage left the team to help a friend for a night.

PR being constant makes a hell of a lot more sense than the team rating being constant imo.

But oh well, the whole arena system is fucking messed up either way.

[Dren]

I approve of sticky personal ratings.  It not only prevents being screwed over by a team member hopping, but it prevents people from "starting over."  No longer would you have full S3 geared teams starting over again at 1500 and battling against newbs. 

If you get the gear and skill to get to a high level in Arenas, you should always be placed to play against like opponents.  I think this would help with this regard.

It would make it difficult for people just starting out matching up with vets though.  Perhaps the scores could degrade over time of non-use.  Wipe your score after 3 weeks of non-pvp with that character perhaps?  Maybe buy back programs.  Trade in that S3 item to reduce your score some?

Sound harsh?  It is.  I'm not really a fan of powerleveling people through arenas.  If you want to do Arenas with your friend, "delevel" and you can.

[Ragnoros]

Figured this was as good a place as any to stick this.

Season 4 begins June 24th

[Oban]

S4 looks like clown ass.

I want a dark, sinister WoW please.

[Paelos]

I find it more disturbing that every armor type looks exactly the same regardless of the class. Pallys and Warriors, Rogues and Druids, Hunters and Shamans, and all the freaking clothies will look exactly the same. That's gotta be a new low on laziness for Blizzard. In a game that's suppose to be all about gear and polished diku, that's a bad sign for the future.

[lamaros]

I find it more disturbing that every armor type looks exactly the same regardless of the class. Pallys and Warriors, Rogues and Druids, Hunters and Shamans, and all the freaking clothies will look exactly the same. That's gotta be a new low on laziness for Blizzard. In a game that's suppose to be all about gear and polished diku, that's a bad sign for the future.

They've said that they're designing all new PvP reward gear for WotLK, so it's different from the PvE gear.

Not sure if that means as many different ones for PvP as PvE or not, but I suspect that Season 4 isn't an indication of where things are at. They're probably just all working on WotLK now and season 4 wasn't that important.

[Ragnoros]

I find it more disturbing that every armor type looks exactly the same regardless of the class. Pallys and Warriors, Rogues and Druids, Hunters and Shamans, and all the freaking clothies will look exactly the same. That's gotta be a new low on laziness for Blizzard. In a game that's suppose to be all about gear and polished diku, that's a bad sign for the future.

Basically what lamaros said. Bigger fish to fry. Besides the people fighting for this gear are not the type of people who give the shits about how they look. Mostly.

As has been said before, this is their LAST SHRED of content before WotLK. (If +1 armor of uglyness can be called content.) So they better get thier butts in gear or they are going to have 10 million paying customers with nothing new to do for 5-9 months or so. You would think after four years they would have figured out how to get this shit out faster, but I guess not.

I'm bitching because I'm having fun playing WoW with my brother again, but the cold hard truth that there will be nothing new to do for months means my enjoyment is not going to last long.

[lamaros]

As has been said before, this is their LAST SHRED of content before WotLK. (If +1 armor of uglyness can be called content.) So they better get thier butts in gear or they are going to have 10 million paying customers with nothing new to do for 5-9 months or so. You would think after four years they would have figured out how to get this shit out faster, but I guess not.

I'm bitching because I'm having fun playing WoW with my brother again, but the cold hard truth that there will be nothing new to do for months means my enjoyment is not going to last long.

I popped on to WoW for the first time in a year a week and a bit back. Golly things are boring. I'm tossing up between doing the only thing that might be slightly fun, joining some Sunwell guild and seeing some of the supposedly "best raid fights ever" and stuff, or just dicking about till this months sub runs out saving up some gold for the DK I'm going to play in WotLK. Better to do the latter probably, so that the shitty things about WoW don't piss me off and make me enjoy WotLK less when it releases (late this year I expect, Nov-Decish).

[Paelos]

The Sunwell stuff isn't going to do it for a lot of people. The fights don't sound fun to me; they sound like another step into the "be perfect or you're fucked" territory. I like a lot of the dynamics they are playing around with, but they seem to be trying to put duct tape on their broken gearflation with ridiculous rage timers and that weird buff "Sunwell Radiance" that all the mobs get in there.

By the way, I think enrage timers are probably the worst idea ever. It's a way of reinforcing the retarded DPS race stuff outside of normal healing or tanking breakdowns.

[Fordel]

I wouldn't worry about Season 4 looking retarded, only about 5 people on every server will have it 


Being able to grab a Season 2 weapon/shield for my Paladin will be nice.

[Simond]

I wouldn't worry about Season 4 looking retarded, only about 5 people on every server will have it 


Being able to grab a Season 2 weapon/shield for my Paladin will be nice.

Pretty much this - I'm going to get myself the S2 swords and some of the armour for my rogue, then start levelling up a shaman alt to 70 or so to be ready for the influx of "4 DKs need healer for instance_34" groups at the launch of WotLK. 

[lamaros]

I wouldn't worry about Season 4 looking retarded, only about 5 people on every server will have it 


Being able to grab a Season 2 weapon/shield for my Paladin will be nice.

Pretty much this - I'm going to get myself the S2 swords and some of the armour for my rogue, then start levelling up a shaman alt to 70 or so to be ready for the influx of "4 DKs need healer for instance_34" groups at the launch of WotLK. 

I'm rolling a DK but I'm not planning on doing any of the TBC instances; they're mostly rubbish and, as you say, healers will be scant. Still, I'm sure there will be a few that do, and you'll never have trouble finding a tank.

[Merusk]

I wouldn't worry about Season 4 looking retarded, only about 5 people on every server will have it 


Being able to grab a Season 2 weapon/shield for my Paladin will be nice.

Pretty much this - I'm going to get myself the S2 swords and some of the armour for my rogue, then start levelling up a shaman alt to 70 or so to be ready for the influx of "4 DKs need healer for instance_34" groups at the launch of WotLK. 

I'm rolling a DK but I'm not planning on doing any of the TBC instances; they're mostly rubbish and, as you say, healers will be scant. Still, I'm sure there will be a few that do, and you'll never have trouble finding a tank.

Yes you will.  There are tank, dps and pvp trees.  DK tanks will be as numerous as warrior tanks are now, unless their tank build is superior to the PVP/ DPS build for solo grinding, like Pallies. 

[Fordel]

Actually they changed that again. All three DK trees will be tank worthy.


There also trying to make it so a non-Protection warrior can tank a normal instance again.

[lamaros]

Yeah all Pallies/Feral Druids/Warriors/DKs will be able to tank 5mans regardless of spec in WotLK. When it comes to heroics you might need a little mroe if you're a shitty tank, but it's only raid stuff that will need out and out tank specs.

And even then all tank specs are going to do a lot more damage in WotLK, they're moving away from notable +threat stuff and makign much more DPS based threat.

[Merusk]

That's what they said about BC.. and it was true up until the raid instances. I had plenty of DPS wars tanking my groups right through Arcatraz, where things started to get a bit wonky. 

Dps-based worked Pre-bc, IIRC.  Plenty of our tanks in BWL would pick-up high DPS weapons for the added threat.  That's also why pally tanks sucked so hard, because they simply didn't have the tools to DPS. No heroic strike, no sunder, no cleave, etc. Just judgements every 8 seconds and whatever weapon you could pick up.  Perhaps they'll give them a ton of +spelldam to make up for it, as +spelldam weapons are capped at a DPS lower than a level 60 BC DPS weapon.  (41.5)

[Fordel]

Well they made Shield Slam and Imp D-stance baseline now, so that alone should help the non-Prot warrior Tanks.



As to Paladins, after looking at the new shaman abilities (they roughly gave Shamans cleanse and Illumination along with other things), I *really* get the feeling we are going to see a DRASTIC rethink in paladin design.


My personal hope for Holy Paladins, is some kind of Healing through Melee spec. Place a buff on the Tank, then all Damage done is converted into healing onto the marked person. Or something.