PvP has collapsed

[Salandrin]

Note: I no longer play World of Warcraft, but I keep in touch with friends that play competitive PvP. For various reasons, PvP has dissolved as any kind of metagame, and turned into more of a nuisance.

I will detail the reasons in several categories.

Arenas
The first, and initially, only way competitive PvP came to place. You could argue, due to WoWs PvE nature, Arenas are normally balanced. However, beginning with Season 11, several catastrophic mistakes with the way the MMR works, arena activity is currently dead. This coupled with the fact that is too little to achieve, bumped with the abnormal difficulty in simply achieving the T2 gear, is unfortunately what brings it to it's current state.

Cross Realm PvP
Serving little more purpose than to harass people not interested in PvP, it makes you wonder...

Rated Battlegrounds
Arguably the only PvP that is enjoyable right now, it does suffer from the terrifying class balance, but with a good weekly group, it is more forgiving to get T2 gear than the broken state of Arenas.

Random Battlegrounds
Bots. Bots everywhere.

It is from the perspective of a former 2400+ PvPer, but what do you guys think of PvP as endgame content now?

[Reclaimer]

Theres allways been Bots and allways will be. I dont understand why people moan about them now. Sure, You walk into a random BG and half your team is bots. I love the fact that no one every talks about how they walked into a BG and got an Easy win from Bots being on the other team. It works both ways.

I think PvP is okay. It will never be 100% balanced. I was 2300 rating on my shaman in Cata.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

This arena season is just there because it has to be. Blizz is working on a number of major revamps to how the arena system works for 5.2 (next season).

As for bots, BGs are great for them. It's just something we'll have to deal with, because I don't wanna have to input a captcha I can't even see (they're too jumbled/complicated these days) to PvP for fun.

[Rec]

Theres allways been Bots and allways will be. I dont understand why people moan about them now. Sure, You walk into a random BG and half your team is bots. I love the fact that no one every talks about how they walked into a BG and got an Easy win from Bots being on the other team. It works both ways.

I think PvP is okay. It will never be 100% balanced. I was 2300 rating on my shaman in Cata.

There is more to PvP than an easy win. I feel like there are more bots than there were when I started in BC, and that's it's really ramped up since Cata, but that's purely my experience.

I do agree that PvP will never be perfectly balanced, but there have been some ridiculously powerful and garbage specs.

[sakura owns u all]

I totally agree. its just not like it used to be, you know?

[Flaks]

Theres allways been Bots and allways will be. I dont understand why people moan about them now. Sure, You walk into a random BG and half your team is bots. I love the fact that no one every talks about how they walked into a BG and got an Easy win from Bots being on the other team. It works both ways.

I think PvP is okay. It will never be 100% balanced. I was 2300 rating on my shaman in Cata.

I've complained about facing a team of Alliance bots as Horde. I enjoy a good challenging match that ISN'T pre-determined like rated bgs. So, as rare as a good random bg is to find, that's basically the only reason I play this game.

[Feviir]

Pvp is always up for debate. Balance is never perfect and some classes get away with some pretty insane things. But if you are skilled you can achieve good ratings with almost any class/spec. Sure you may need to outplay others who may be drooling and eating paper at their keyboard, but I feel that the fact that it is doable says good things about the 'terrible' balance. Most things get ironed out anyways.

People normally complain when it isn't their class that's OP and blame failure on that.

All in all, lots of fun. Except for BM hunters. Screw them

[FuxieDK]

PvP is a side-game, intended as a time-sink, NOT as a primary part of the game.

As long as other (more imporatant) stuff needs attention PvP should be left alone/ignored..

I'm sick and tired of the amount of love PvP gets compared to PvE..

[Samyaaza]

I am really sorry but I just can't accept when someone says there always were bots and will be, this is not something players should deal with and just get over it, but it's Blizzard's job to fix this finally someday, because this is exactly what you're paying your sub for and they are not delivering, that's just how it is.

[Arbs]

WoW PvE based game which added PvP after, Arenas were a mistake & Rob Pardo admitted it as he was the one who was in charge before he passed that over to Ghostcrawler aka Greg T Street. Since than PvP as been an unbalanced mess. Before that though it was alright, but nothing beats pre arena PvP.

[PvPisthelifeforme]

PvP is a side-game, intended as a time-sink, NOT as a primary part of the game.

As long as other (more imporatant) stuff needs attention PvP should be left alone/ignored..

I'm sick and tired of the amount of love PvP gets compared to PvE..

PvP is the future of gaming, and MMOs included. It is simple to create, when it is the players who provide the content. In theory it would be simple to maintain, but with other factors (PvE) proving to be a nuisance for balancing factors. Heck look at how content from nearly eight years ago (battleground maps) are STILL used, and loved by many. Whether you like it or not, you either pick PvE, PvP, or a hybrid of both.

To put things on topic, it can be argued many ways what the current state of PvP is for WoW. I agree with many of things you state Saladrin, but until you try it yourself it is what you make of it. Heck I found PvE to be stale and boring after Burning Crusade, and that is why I currently am in love with PvP!

[Deleted]

GC's MoP pvp balance: all classes must have shit sustained damage but 2 shot you when they pop cooldowns.

If only there was such a thing as beta testing, where the devs could have seen this just doesn't work like this. Oh wait...

[Twoddle]

Cross Realm PvP
Serving little more purpose than to harass people not interested in PvP

I thought PvP realms were for people who actively enjoy world PvP. People like me who enjoy ganking and being ganked while questing, I don't get what you're saying.

it makes you wonder...

About what?

[FuxieDK]

PvP is the future of gaming, and MMOs included. It is simple to create, when it is the players who provide the content. In theory it would be simple to maintain, but with other factors (PvE) proving to be a nuisance for balancing factors. Heck look at how content from nearly eight years ago (battleground maps) are STILL used, and loved by many. Whether you like it or not, you either pick PvE, PvP, or a hybrid of both.

People said PvP was the future, back in '97 when Ultima Online was released..
Guess what.. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now..
Coop is the way of MMOs, not PvP..

Every time, Blizzard focus on a PvP issue, they focus on (maybe) 10% of the players needs.. When they focus on PvE issues, they focus on 99% of players needs.

99 > 10...

[Deleted]

PvP is a side-game, intended as a time-sink, NOT as a primary part of the game.

As long as other (more imporatant) stuff needs attention PvP should be left alone/ignored..

I'm sick and tired of the amount of love PvP gets compared to PvE..

Ironically, pvp is what most players care about. Sure, the pve part is important but you just can't sell an MMO that doesn't have pvp or the pvp part is horrid, like WoW right now.

[Yriel]

PvP is the future of gaming, and MMOs included. It is simple to create, when it is the players who provide the content.

No it´s not the future, it´s something investors would like to have as the future. As you said it´s cheaper to create and the players will do the rest but just as with MMOs or FTPs, there is a limit of people interested in it and you can´t force everyone to suddenly like pvp games.

---------- Post added 2012-11-05 at 11:16 AM ----------

Ironically, pvp is what most players care about. Sure, the pve part is important but you just can't sell an MMO that doesn't have pvp or the pvp part is horrid, like WoW right now.

Yeah because the PvP centric MMOs were all sooooo successful....

[FuxieDK]

Ironically, pvp is what most players care about. Sure, the pve part is important but you just can't sell an MMO that doesn't have pvp or the pvp part is horrid, like WoW right now.

Most players? NO WAY..
Most players never step into a BG or Arena, and PvP servers are BY FAR outnumbered by PvE, and more and more PvP servers are converted to PvE for every expansion...

[PvPisthelifeforme]

People said PvP was the future, back in '97 when Ultima Online was released..
Guess what.. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now..
Coop is the way of MMOs, not PvP..

Every time, Blizzard focus on a PvP issue, they focus on (maybe) 10% of the players needs.. When they focus on PvE issues, they focus on 99% of players needs.

99 > 10...

If you look at games such as League of Legends, Call of Duty, and anything of the such you will see PvP. However those are newer games, and World of Warcraft is much older in the gaming community. Is World of Warcraft's pvp flawless? Of course not, there are many many flaws. The seed of these issues stems from the fact that this game is attempting to balance PvE together with PvP. If you look into the market it shows, while Blizzard is not perfect with maintaining the two together in a strong manner, they are doing many things right, which has led to and is currently keeping the top dog status of MMOs.

As for your statistic, it is quite common to view others problems being solved much faster than yours. While you claim pvp issues are resolved much quicker, the majority of the time those issues were bugs to begin with, and bugs are not intended to be in the end product. Now when it comes to balancing, which I believe you're confusing the two, that is when it can go either way in regards to the swiftness of the fix.

[FuxieDK]

If you look at games such as League of Legends, Call of Duty, and anything of the such you will see PvP.

Neither LoL nor CoD are MMOs..

MMO = Massive Multiplayer Online..
LoL is 5v5 which hardly can be considered MASSIVE..
i don't know how may play in CoD, but it's not counted in hundreds or thousands in same game and thus not MMO either..

[Deleted]

So, by reading these answers basically the idea of many is that yes, PvP is an utter disgrace, but we shouldn't care about it since there's still PvE.
A great line of reasoning.
MoP looks really like the best WoW expansion ever...