How is PVP ever going to be somewhat balanced when the PTR doesn't care...

[gutnbrg]

PvP in WoW will become decent when:

• Blizz starts balancing around the actual potential of a class, and not based on how many people play it (e.g. Monk + Rogue buffs), QQ (e.g. Feral nerfs) or personal bias (e.g. Mage being protected from nerfs)
• Excessive crutches are removed (e.g. enemy group frames, ridiculous macros etc.)
• Someone releases an MMORPG that has better PvP than WoW to introduce some competition
• Blizz separates PvE raids from PvP instead of making reckless PvE-oriented changes followed by a trickle of delayed, half-assed band-aid patches to PvP that don't even work
• Instanced PvP is removed and World PvP (no, Winterlag, Lol Barad, Halaa or Quel'Danas were not World PvP) is fostered instead
• Gear upgrades through PvP are (mostly) cosmetic
• CC system is revamped to prevent mindless spamming/chaining
• Damage and healing calculation in PvP takes into account that players, unlike raid bosses, do not have millions of HP

Not necessarily exhaustive.

werent mages 1 of the first classes to get nerfed since MOP launch?

[corebit]

pvprs have done the whole ptr thing, but when you are ignored on the ptr time after time you kinda dont' bother anymore, again look at stampede what 6 months if you include beta the players said "it does way to much damage", "dps healing is way to high", "dps cds stacking needs fixed", ect ect.

and look we are still talking about such topics

I'm talking quality feedback, the kind with raw numbers and math, the ones that developers are mostly looking towards. 99% of PVP feedback boils down to "feelings", like losing to a certain class and demanding nerfs to them. When asked for suggestions for toning damage or healing abilities, you still get very rough numbers from even the best PVP players.

You almost never see the kind of numbers feedback that Lhivera does for example for PVE mages.

Compound this with extremely low participation in PVP from the testing realms.

The reality is that PVP playerbase attitude is simply unhelpful. The previous warlock developer Xelnath even mentioned this. During MOP beta, he sent beta invites to ALL the top warlocks: Nadagast, Filo, Snutz, etc. None of them gave a shit, no one responded him. Like everyone is too busy sitting on their ratings or streaming shit. When affliction turned out to be weak at the start of MOP, all of sudden the arena players start complaining how they dislike the warlock design, etc.

[Madruga]

As long as Blizzard has to balance PVP around PVE, and vice versa, PVP will never be balanced.

Let's face it, WoW focus is mainly PVE. They simply cannot risk ruining PVE to made PVP work. Even though sometimes they do that...

I really think they should make a separate table for PVP only, and then change that at will, without concern on what the effect on PVE would be.

[Deleted]

PTR is to test new raid content, why would they waste time and effort on PvP when there isn't even any new Battleground to test etc?

[Stormspellz]

I'm talking quality feedback, the kind with raw numbers and math, the ones that developers are mostly looking towards. 99% of PVP feedback boils down to "feelings", like losing to a certain class and demanding nerfs to them. When asked for suggestions for toning damage or healing abilities, you still get very rough numbers from even the best PVP players.

You almost never see the kind of numbers feedback that Lhivera does for example for PVE mages.

Compound this with extremely low participation in PVP from the testing realms.

The reality is that PVP playerbase attitude is simply unhelpful. The previous warlock developer Xelnath even mentioned this. During MOP beta, he sent beta invites to ALL the top warlocks: Nadagast, Filo, Snutz, etc. None of them gave a shit, no one responded him. Like everyone is too busy sitting on their ratings or streaming shit. When affliction turned out to be weak at the start of MOP, all of sudden the arena players start complaining how they dislike the warlock design, etc.

you can't sim craft a pvp fight, but you can't go well now we kinda want to listen and get upset after you won't help after we ignored your feeback in the past time in and time out.

[corebit]

you can't sim craft a pvp fight, but you can't go well now we kinda want to listen and get upset after you won't help after we ignored your feeback in the past time in and time out.

Then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't bother giving feedback because you think the devs ignore you, and they in turn don't have any data to work with for balancing.

[Stormspellz]

Then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't bother giving feedback because you think the devs ignore you, and they in turn don't have any data to work with for balancing.

its not think, they did, from harp rogues, to 3.0 ret paladins, destro conflag gib combo, to pve gear, all the way up to stampede in mop beta and everything in between. all things that was widely warned about and yet made it to live.

[Nicola]

The problem is, that for every top PvPer on the ptr that are giving good feedback, there are 30 other players that play terrible giving feedback, another 50 that just give terrible feedback blizzard can't work with and another 200 players that just play without giving feedback.
Good PvPers are just in the very minority, blizzard can't just listen to them because the majority is saying the opposite.

Pulled these numbers out of my ass, but there are way to many players on the PTR that give no feedback, terrible feed back or are giving good back but have no clue what they are talking about....

Lets take chaosbolt for example, a good PvP'er would know that the spell is perfectly fine since it deals "okey" damage but on a long casttime.
However, baddies will come with the excuse of, but I'm chain cc'ed, I can't interrupt it, and the damage is to much since I can't counter it. I'm fairly sure that most people still want to see nerfs to chaosbolt, for whatever reason they have.
And then there's another group that will just yell: CHAOSBOLT OP, NERF!

[corebit]

its not think, they did, from harp rogues, to 3.0 ret paladins, destro conflag gib combo, to pve gear, all the way up to stampede in mop beta and everything in between. all things that was widely warned about and yet made it to live.

Not really accurate to bring them up, because most of those abilities and mechanics were developed from player suggestions as well, and besides it's not like there was definite consensus on whether the abilities were OP or not from the beta feedback. There's always a portion of the population who thinks certain abilities are fine and another portion who thinks they are not.

Why did ret 3.0 happen? Because ret was a joke throughout vanilla and TBC, and through player feedback the devs wanted to rectify that. It was strong VERY BRIEFLY and promptly nerfed, and now for MOP it's back to lolret again. Same with conflag warlock and S5 DKs.

These OP abilities you list barely lasted a season. Now let's see for MOP, season 12 hasn't ended yet and warriors, spriests, and mages are all getting nerfed. The biggest offenders in damage, CC, and healing are getting nerfs across the board. That shows to me that Blizzard is pretty active and on the ball in balancing. I really don't see the Blizzard is somehow neglecting PVP.

[Tragopan]

PvP in WoW will become decent when:

• Blizz starts balancing around the actual potential of a class, and not based on how many people play it (e.g. Monk + Rogue buffs), QQ (e.g. Feral nerfs) or personal bias (e.g. Mage being protected from nerfs)
• Excessive crutches are removed (e.g. enemy group frames, ridiculous macros etc.)
• Someone releases an MMORPG that has better PvP than WoW to introduce some competition
• Blizz separates PvE raids from PvP instead of making reckless PvE-oriented changes followed by a trickle of delayed, half-assed band-aid patches to PvP that don't even work
• Instanced PvP is removed and World PvP (no, Winterlag, Lol Barad, Halaa or Quel'Danas were not World PvP) is fostered instead
• Gear upgrades through PvP are (mostly) cosmetic
• CC system is revamped to prevent mindless spamming/chaining
• Damage and healing calculation in PvP takes into account that players, unlike raid bosses, do not have millions of HP

Not necessarily exhaustive.

These are fair points. I for one would love to see a system that doesn't revolve around CCs.

[corebit]

The problem is, that for every top PvPer on the ptr that are giving good feedback, there are 30 other players that play terrible giving feedback, another 50 that just give terrible feedback blizzard can't work with and another 200 players that just play without giving feedback.

Most top PVPers don't even care about giving feedback. Reckful is too busy playing FOTM classes. Veev just quits as soon he sees the warrior getting nerfs. Woundman and Soda just do retarded shit all day while livestreaming and getting banned.

Right now I really see no difference in quality in ArenaJunkies forum from Blizzard PVP forums. Nothing but random complaining and trolling.

And that's why the general notion that Blizzard should somehow only listen to 2200+ rated players for PVP feedback is completely incorrect.

The only decent ones I see that actually care are Nagadast who suggested the removal of rating requirements on PVP gear, Talbadar, Affx, and a few others who post actively in balance discussions. But their kind of feedback happens too infrequently to make a difference.

[Stormspellz]

Not really accurate to bring them up, because most of those abilities and mechanics were developed from player suggestions as well, and besides it's not like there was definite consensus on whether the abilities were OP or not from the beta feedback. There's always a portion of the population who thinks certain abilities are fine and another portion who thinks they are not.

Why did ret 3.0 happen? Because ret was a joke throughout vanilla and TBC, and through player feedback the devs wanted to rectify that. It was strong VERY BRIEFLY and promptly nerfed, and now for MOP it's back to lolret again. Same with conflag warlock and S5 DKs.

These OP abilities you list barely lasted a season. Now let's see for MOP, season 12 hasn't ended yet and warriors, spriests, and mages are all getting nerfed. The biggest offenders in damage, CC, and healing are getting nerfs across the board. That shows to me that Blizzard is pretty active and on the ball in balancing. I really don't see the Blizzard is somehow neglecting PVP.

its fair because even IF someone of those was player suggestions, we PAY and as professional developers it is their job to balance that stuff out, time in and time out blizz balance for pvp is more damage, the best example of this is s7-s8 when to balance moonkins, elemental, ect they for the most part just made them do more damage, and even rogues now, oh survivability issues? mobility issues? ok here's more damage.

A lot of the issue is the wow team does not have a full time pvp developer and the people who think along the lines of "you know what would be kool for dragonslaying" are the same people who handle pvp....when they eventually get around to it.

you can also look back at stunhearld and the comment "we don't like random stuns in pvp" then s5 you have dnd glyph and explosive shot, all the way to now rain of fire, which eventual got altered, paralytic poison and putting juggernaut on the random stun dr for a class that has a short cd 5 sec aoe stun already.

[Kazdum]

Most top PVPers don't even care about giving feedback. Reckful is too busy playing FOTM classes. Veev just quits as soon he sees the warrior getting nerfs. Woundman and Soda just do retarded shit all day while livestreaming and getting banned.

Right now I really see no difference in quality in ArenaJunkies forum from Blizzard PVP forums. Nothing but random complaining and trolling.

And that's why the general notion that Blizzard should somehow only listen to 2200+ rated players for PVP feedback is completely incorrect.

The only decent ones I see that actually care are Nagadast who suggested the removal of rating requirements on PVP gear, Talbadar, Affx, and a few others who post actively in balance discussions. But their kind of feedback happens too infrequently to make a difference.

Its hard to give feedback when the PTR doesnt even have pvp vendors.
Blizzard work with numbers, nor even 1% of the player base ever stepped into arenas, so they give 1% of their time to PvP, bugs affecting pve?fixed on the same day, rov was in the game for 2 years.
Its safe to assume that the vast majority of the people who took pvp seriously quitted long time ago, ArenaJunkies is a dead forum and so its most of the other pvp forums whats left from the pvp community is a bunch of people trolling and ddos each other in streams while the rest wintrade for titles.

[Flaks]

I can't believe people actually think Blizzard doesn't care when they're constantly giving feedback based around pvp. This patch alone has provided us with more pvp feedback than every other patch combined.

Because most of the "good" changes are being reverted while the completely over the top buffs or nerfs are the ones that are going through.

Because Blizzard, without fail, has made changes contrary to the "wisest" ideas they've had to balance PvP.

[Roose]

I have followed this game since vanilla and lost all hope in balanced pvp a while ago. It is sad. The developers are obviously not focused on it and never will be.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 11:53 AM ----------

PvP in WoW will become decent when:

• Blizz starts balancing around the actual potential of a class, and not based on how many people play it (e.g. Monk + Rogue buffs), QQ (e.g. Feral nerfs) or personal bias (e.g. Mage being protected from nerfs)
• Excessive crutches are removed (e.g. enemy group frames, ridiculous macros etc.)
• Someone releases an MMORPG that has better PvP than WoW to introduce some competition
• Blizz separates PvE raids from PvP instead of making reckless PvE-oriented changes followed by a trickle of delayed, half-assed band-aid patches to PvP that don't even work
• Instanced PvP is removed and World PvP (no, Winterlag, Lol Barad, Halaa or Quel'Danas were not World PvP) is fostered instead
• Gear upgrades through PvP are (mostly) cosmetic
• CC system is revamped to prevent mindless spamming/chaining
• Damage and healing calculation in PvP takes into account that players, unlike raid bosses, do not have millions of HP

Not necessarily exhaustive.

I concur with all of that. Of course there is more.

[Feranor]

werent mages 1 of the first classes to get nerfed since MOP launch?

I guess killing people in a single Frost Bomb was too much even for GC. That was genuine Gershlol level.

Imagine reading

• Blink no longer breaks Stuns.

in the patch notes.

Yeah, not going to happen. Except maybe on April 1st. Certain other classes have had half of their core abilities removed and basic mechanics scrapped, leaving them crippled for entire expansions.

[dinouille]

I can't believe people actually think Blizzard doesn't care when they're constantly giving feedback based around pvp. This patch alone has provided us with more pvp feedback than every other patch combined.

y they don't care

cuz this game is bader and bader every patch

why? cuz they listen to bad player, not the good one that are playing this game since 8 years.

[Deleted]

They've said before that they get very few people doing pvp testing on the PTRs. Some of the few that do any pvp testing are probably there just to mess around and test new spells anyway, so there's little serious pvp.

That's part of the reason why we get so many pvp related hotfixes in between patches. Since they don't get enough info from the PTRs, they release patches with untested changes and adjust things based on what they see happening to the balance on Live.

tbh all i read from this is that blizzard just make excuses for there laziness towards fixing pvp if they cant be arsed with it they should just remove it and im a pvper myself. im sick of the imbalance the uncalled nerfs to classes that dnt need it yet other classes who do need nerfs (mages) dnt get shit cos GC plays one, then they removed valor to conquest so to get arena gear you have to play in imbalanced arenas or play in bot infested battlegrounds. not suprised blizz lost some subscribers in there conference call on feb 7 i bet most if not all are pvpers who are sick to death of being ignored.

[Deleted]

Are you joking? I cannot take this serioulsy. Warlocks have utility but they arent even near top tier in most cases. SP, FrMage, Warrior, Hpala, Rdruid, Fdruid are way more imbalanced than warlocks.

[Deleted]

What pvp balance do you want when the ptr is almost deserted, and even when it's half full 99% of the people just afk, kill the other faction players or do some target dummy tests and then logout?