RIP Rated PvP

[Deleted]

Lol noob spotted - let me guess now that everyone is on a level playing field your sorry ass can't kill anyone , whilst before you could just farm pvp with a couple of noob buddies , over gear everyone though STUPID pvp stats that make you unkillable to someone who started recently and then roflstomp people , thinking you're great . Well guess what ? You clearly aren't , and seem to have a hard time accepting that so instead you come to cry on forums

T guy who doesn't play PvP.

[Deleted]

Lol noob spotted - let me guess now that everyone is on a level playing field your sorry ass can't kill anyone , whilst before you could just farm pvp with a couple of noob buddies , over gear everyone though STUPID pvp stats that make you unkillable to someone who started recently and then roflstomp people , thinking you're great . Well guess what ? You clearly aren't , and seem to have a hard time accepting that so instead you come to cry on forums

How is calling names doing any good to this discussion.
It's not just a matter of gear, there is literally no point in progressing PvP at all.

Before one could grow its chances by participating in starting PvP, getting a set good enough to compete in basic PvP and basic PvE, then you could go up wherever.
And starting PvE, giving roughly the same, allowed players to work around its own concept of fun.

Now gear is normalized, but playing field is not even, because there's gear to take care of since all that matters is ilevel, then there's honor AND prestige levels, then there's the artifact.
Let's not even start how absurdly easy it is for 5man m+ players to get gear that allows them to participate in PvP, rolling over competition.
And m+ are great, but it's the equivalent of a battleground until maybe +10. Raids are the primetime PvE content and reward players with superior trinkets and (soon enough) tier sets.

In PvP? In PvP this whole jazz just isn't there.
You get unrewarding relics (which as useless as they are in PvP help in everything that's not PvP, which is the majority of Legion content), an incoherent mess of rewards, you can't target anything - and PvP used to be all about getting exactly what you want, progressing the character exactly how you wanted.

I remember how I looked with anticipation to the new season release, wondering how the new season set would look, anticipating to see the weapons.

This whole thing is now gone.
There's only the competition for the sake of competition, which as good and nice as it may sound simply fails to deliver as far as an MMO goes, in my opinion.
And maybe not just mine, because even amongst high rated players and pros (and potential ones) I bet there's someone who dropped the ball for this reason, and the empty ladders reflect that.
And this whole jazz is just about items alone, let's just forget how unrewarding the whole mechanical aspect of the game can sometimes be, nowadays.

No rewards == no fun.

[wholol]

The problem is that they changed PvP to be more about skill at a point in time where hardly any class requires skill anymore to be played effectively in PvP.

Pretty much this.

I've been in the top echelons of pvp ( multi-glad borderline R1) several times and I feel like every expansion has been ruining the pvp enjoyment more and more, it's not about the new no gear policy.

It's mainly the lack of class depth or utility, everything feels so 2 dimensional now with no room for alterations, arena has become so similar to pve with it's rotations that it practically is a 3 man raid encounter where the only difference between a R1 and a duelist is how good said team can perform their rotations perfectly , the skill floor and ceiling are so close to each other they are practically forming a line and if you add to that the fact that gear is negligible you will see how people who have never been above 1500 before reach beyond 2.2 by facerolling and doing pve rotations.

I've moved onto other games for pvp , mainly Overwatch and League, at least there's a semblance of the term balance.

[Caolela]

I didn't even get Legion and knew PvP was shit.

How ppl cling in to hope with Blizz I will never know.

I wouldn't play Legion if it were totally F2P, I'd rather play 19-20 twink brackets and be gimped.

The clinging to hope is also manufactured to a large extent by Blizz. They know if they keep screwing up the game but in small increments, people will get used to it over time and accept it, rather than in a couple of big swoops. Especially if they can keep the PR machine rolling and their free army of True Believers running interference for them on forums and in-game, as well as their paid trolls, forum mods, and company people posting incognito.

For example, once you've gotten over the aggro of say BiS RNG trinkets from Ashran, it's not as much of a shock to introduce all-RNG in the next xpac, with the excuse of templates and a "revamped system" behind it. Same for pruning a few abilities here and a few there next time - it takes awhile but eventually you get to where you want to be and those who are left are sufficiently acclimated by that time to accept almost anything.

[bewbew]

There is no point to answer people who truly believe it's all about dumb mechanics.

Yes, dumb mechanics contribute, but aren't the cause.

Mmo players are extremely resilient in enduring bullshit as long as it contributes to their character's progress. The fact you even have to ask for a source for this affirmation makes me question your experience with WoW and even MMOs in general.

As long as there are tangible, worthy rewards in the end of the PvP content, even if gated at very reasonable steps (Like Wrath), people will participate - as long as these gatings are clear and a sense of progression is still present for those who fail to acchieve these breakpoints.

The game could be 4 skills per class and a CC and people would still participate.

They participated in Ashram.

[Caolela]

The game could be 4 skills per class and a CC and people would still participate.

They participated in Ashram.

We're just about there now. WoW is fast becoming a somewhat busier version of HotS with the RNG of Diablo.

[xZerocidex]

We're just about there now. WoW is fast becoming a somewhat busier version of HotS with the RNG of Diablo.

WoW coming to consoles near you.

[Deleted]

This is one thing we need to understand.

A lot of legions faults especially in pvp are due to player feedback throughout the years. Yes, even pruning. Legion is a huge fan service expansion which just went to show that the fans really have no clue.

The only mistake that was a dev one this expansion was the fuckton of rng they added. And I could argue that that's actually the biggest fault of legion as a whole and actually contributes heavily to the state of pvp right now.

i thought everyone and their mother was against pruning, pvp died when they catered to pvers.

[RelaZ]

Regardless if this current titles debacle is going to be resolved or not the main issues with Legion and WoW PvP remain:

1) HORRIBLE class design. Literally everyone at a decent rating will tell you it's so boring and all they do is spam damage . The prune (WoD/Legion) literally made almost all classes so stupid there is almost no difference between a 2k and a 2.4k player. In the few cases where they actually didn't prune they instead implemented-/replaced old utility with retarded new utility (WoD Freezing Arrow and Trap comes to mind). All the other things on this list together are less important than this item. The game has been unbalanced before, PvE gear has been stupidly OP before, there has been a rating gate before - but that didn't matter because PvP was fun, because the classes and their mechanics were fun at their core. Now they're just empty, dumbed down shells of what they once were. Players who really care about PvP tell their friends it suck, they tell their friends and thus no one starts playing PvP and instead everyone quits. PvP is driven by class design, nothing else. If specs' designs aren't fun in PvP then PvP won't be fun. To me personally it feels as if they designed PvP to suit PvErs instead of PvPers (ie no CC, no skills, "fuck pillar hugging and cc, be a cave-man /1200 dk" attitude design basically). Problem with that is that PvErs don't like PvP regardless of its design, on top of that PvPers will quit (and they/we are, in droves).

2) Gearing. Why bother with high RNG PvP gear when you can get 880 or just under just by running some mythic+ and heroic, or possibly mythic, EN. The reward structure in PvP is utterly awful. There is nothing really drawing people to PvP, PvE is just the much easier way of a) getting gear and b) getting good gear. Removal of PvP item levels (from WoD) was terrible. Why break that which already works? We had a perfectly balanced system that worked great for PvPers but because it caused minor issues with low ilvl PvE gearing process it was completely cut in favor of something that instead fucks PvPer gearing process up completely, at all item levels. Nice one.

3) The Grind. There is so much shit to grind that playing an alt, joining late, or rerolling is simply not feasible. Honor talents, Artifact Power and gear is far to difficult to get. Compared to the 6-10hrs of PvEing mobs in Ashran to get entry level gear (and later in the seasons conquest catchup made conquest gear easy to attain). This difficulty completely cripples the ladder. 7.1.5 is mitigating this somewhat with the AK boost.

4) Balance. Yeah this is pretty meh. Meleecleaves in 19/20 games below 2k. PHD almost every second game above 2k. Exaggeration, but still somewhat valid. Sweeping tuning of the stat template is not good enough. The reason for this is because of mechanics. Mostly because people don't have CC to handle meleecleaves like they used to, thus meleecleaves are running rampant and only when sufficient skill is achieved can a team actually win consistently without cc vs very effective melecleave tunneling. In the case of PHD they are one of few comps that are very good at handling meleecleave (while also being able to handle other types of comps).

5) Customization. PvP Templates ruined customization. I personally don't think customization is super important as long as my spec is FUN to play (just look at any other PvP game, champions are generally static - but thought through very thoroughly in order to be fun to play). PvP templates in theory is in my opinion a great idea - had Blizzard actually made the PvP templates with an attitude of enhancing what makes a spec feel FUN (ie giving casters lots of haste to make them not feel sluggish, lots of versatility to ferals etc etc) instead of "what's the most balanced" it could've been a hit. Then from that they could then proceed with minor balance tuning to the templates. But we all know Blizzard's implementations of PvP related things is generally quite meh so of course it was going to be half-assed, with most classes feeling "meh". Even when it comes to dealing damage it feels very wierd (compared to PvE).

6) Public Attitude. Blizzard has shown PvPers time and time again that we are second grade citiziens. Tons and tons of people wrote complaints and worrysome threads with carefully written feedback about how this was going to play out and what the issues were back in Alpha/Beta. Blizzard did absolutely nothing but small token moves such as giving Druids back dispel and growl etc. Nothing major was done, and PvP is now but a shell of what it once was. And this most certainly not the first time Blizzard treats PvPers this way (rampant hacking in WoD/MoP, S10 MMR fiasco, Legendaries, PvE gear is better than PvP gear in all regards in Legion, some wierd Holinka tweets etc). When people feel like they're being treated like shit they'll eventually obviously leave.

Sorry if I'm rambling, it's quite late. Also please excuse my misspellings, English is not my native tongue.

[Trapmastery]

lol

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I have no idea what you're trying to communicate, sorry.

I have no idea what are you saying with this pokemon languages so go back to pokeball and die alone or something.

[Fathme]

Lol noob spotted - let me guess now that everyone is on a level playing field your sorry ass can't kill anyone , whilst before you could just farm pvp with a couple of noob buddies , over gear everyone though STUPID pvp stats that make you unkillable to someone who started recently and then roflstomp people , thinking you're great . Well guess what ? You clearly aren't , and seem to have a hard time accepting that so instead you come to cry on forums

Uhhh? lmfao? Did you even read what you quoted? As to your point though gear normalization really doesn't matter as in arena everyone above 1500 rating is 99% of the time in full conquest gear anyways. I guess the real noob is you who thinks everyone gears out to do randoms and stop their opponent, which I guess would be the first thing that came to your mind...Jokes on you.

Also with artifacts being as powerful as they are gear can still play a factor, in the end it really makes no difference. What I *was* saying is about the stats that you're given in instanced pvp, not the ilvl of your gear, If everyone was normalized to 850 ilvl or whatever it is but they were actually given stats that mean a fuck all to them rather than having 5k mastery 5k haste 5k versatility etc which is the dumbest fucking thing ever then I wouldn't be complaining but in order to play your class correctly you have to be geared correctly, which is why the concept is so bad. Do you understand?

tldr: conquest gearing is better in every single way/shape/form, it allows you to chose your stats rather then be given a stat template that is completely garbage. The reason they failed is because their attempt to make pvp normalized did absolutely *nothing* except gimp some classes while making other by default much more powerful.

Also a fyi it seems you clearly haven't done any pvp this entire expansion and are totally clueless as to how any of this works. Why even join in on the discussion if you're that clueless?

[Snegovik]

I love how ppl keep confusing casual PvP with rated PvP and calling DH a Rolf stomp class....yes only few ppl participate at rated PvP but this is madness blame classes like Rest and Dh breaking rated only cuz they do well at casual bg, or people forgot about arms, elem, feral, lock, mages, ww last season and so on

[Lorianus]

I think the downfall began way back in S7 when they stopped caring about 2s and just focused with balancing 3s.

Well atleast that was the point where i gave up try harding because i enjoyed to queue 2s with one of my buddys as Holy Paladin/Warrior and we never managed to find a decent 3rd player for 3s...so no titles for us from that point on...we always atleast got Duelist before the change and then nothing, and i bet there are alot more people out there who simply never bothered or were unable to find a 3s/5s or even an RBG team that they were comfortable with, players like me and my buddy just enjoyed queueing 2s for titles even if it ment to get completley outclassed by Restodruid-Warlock/Warrior at the time......but we had fun.

I mean blizzard always said they stopped caring about 2s because of balance, but i dont see it.
3s is as infested with Flavor of the Month classes/comps as 2s were.


3s were always the bracket for Streamers and Tournament players, but 2s were the bracket of the average joe, the majority of the Arena Population especially in BC/Wrath.

Arena participation steadily went down from the Wrath glory days and i think this played a huge part in it, well atleast in my opinion.

[Nero Stormchester]

Uhhh? lmfao? Did you even read what you quoted? As to your point though gear normalization really doesn't matter as in arena everyone above 1500 rating is 99% of the time in full conquest gear anyways. I guess the real noob is you who thinks everyone gears out to do randoms and stop their opponent, which I guess would be the first thing that came to your mind...Jokes on you.

Also with artifacts being as powerful as they are gear can still play a factor, in the end it really makes no difference. What I *was* saying is about the stats that you're given in instanced pvp, not the ilvl of your gear, If everyone was normalized to 850 ilvl or whatever it is but they were actually given stats that mean a fuck all to them rather than having 5k mastery 5k haste 5k versatility etc which is the dumbest fucking thing ever then I wouldn't be complaining but in order to play your class correctly you have to be geared correctly, which is why the concept is so bad. Do you understand?

tldr: conquest gearing is better in every single way/shape/form, it allows you to chose your stats rather then be given a stat template that is completely garbage. The reason they failed is because their attempt to make pvp normalized did absolutely *nothing* except gimp some classes while making other by default much more powerful.

Also a fyi it seems you clearly haven't done any pvp this entire expansion and are totally clueless as to how any of this works. Why even join in on the discussion if you're that clueless?

Lol dude clearly the only clueless one is you . Obviously Blizzard isn't a retarded teenager who THINKS he knows balance , they are a massive company with an equivalent amount of resources , and it goes without saying, you clueless hobo, that they looked into templates and the stat allocation . You know that's why they are different in different classes , and that's why they can freely adjust it, like they've already done multiple times. Oh did your silly ass actually think everyone has the same template ? Let me enlighten you :
https://eu.battle.net/forums/ru/wow/topic/17612541533
Clearly it isn't the same is it ?
And yeah, no shit , that gear gives more options for customisation and tailoring the character to your needs. However with the templates , no matter whom you run into , you will know that the better one will win. Not the one who over stacked haste on his boomkin to cheese his way through . Also PvP talents provide a venue to customise you char somewhat too.
And artifacts - they are pretty much the purpose of this expansion , you get AP literally everywhere you go and with AK it shouldn't take all that long to get your traits . Beats farming a full set of conquest anyday , which you admitted yourself , was pretty much required before to even perform in the arena. Now people who work and do other important shit , don't have to waste their time on that, and can get straight down to business .

[f3nnix]

funny how it turned from 2.4 glad cutoffs to 2.9. Anyways, it is to way to love for the state of the game.

[Sencha]

Hopefully this will make blizz wake up and realize that without gear, and there being more efficient/fun honor grinds then rated PvP, 99.05% of players dont give a fuck bout rated PvP because they will never get the permanent rewards.

Before, at least there was the conquest grind, but when ppl can get similar ilvl gear from just doing WQs and mythics, well, nobody is going to bother trying to become the upper 5% just for ilvl 870 gear. As all those players drop out of rated PvP, the number at the top shrinks, so those who got seasonal glad in the past aren't getting it anymore.

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Rated BGs is even worse - I spent 40+ minutes getting a full group through group finder. We then entered WSG, and lost 2-2 after 25 minutes. Woop-de-fucking-doo, a pittance of honor, few ppl left, more ppl left, groups gone.

I would have gotten 5x the honor doing random BGs instead in that time period - And if I spent a modicum of time, go in with a 5 man premade, stomp on the uncooridinated in the 10v10/15v15, man, could have gotten probs closer to 10x the honor, and possibly some upgrades to boot.

Good thing that all wannabe pvpers who were doing pvp just to farm gear have left.

[Deleted]

Lol noob spotted - let me guess now that everyone is on a level playing field your sorry ass can't kill anyone , whilst before you could just farm pvp with a couple of noob buddies , over gear everyone though STUPID pvp stats that make you unkillable to someone who started recently and then roflstomp people , thinking you're great . Well guess what ? You clearly aren't , and seem to have a hard time accepting that so instead you come to cry on forums

He is right you know? Classes are in no way in same playing field. A fdk will just destroy casters, ret palas being extremely overturned (autobubble, auto trinket and no dmg penalty in bop and divine shield). If you are not a frost mage you have no chance winning against melee (not saying they they are Op or form but it's that they still have some tools to get away from melees).

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How is calling names doing any good to this discussion.
It's not just a matter of gear, there is literally no point in progressing PvP at all.

Before one could grow its chances by participating in starting PvP, getting a set good enough to compete in basic PvP and basic PvE, then you could go up wherever.
And starting PvE, giving roughly the same, allowed players to work around its own concept of fun.

Now gear is normalized, but playing field is not even, because there's gear to take care of since all that matters is ilevel, then there's honor AND prestige levels, then there's the artifact.
Let's not even start how absurdly easy it is for 5man m+ players to get gear that allows them to participate in PvP, rolling over competition.
And m+ are great, but it's the equivalent of a battleground until maybe +10. Raids are the primetime PvE content and reward players with superior trinkets and (soon enough) tier sets.

In PvP? In PvP this whole jazz just isn't there.
You get unrewarding relics (which as useless as they are in PvP help in everything that's not PvP, which is the majority of Legion content), an incoherent mess of rewards, you can't target anything - and PvP used to be all about getting exactly what you want, progressing the character exactly how you wanted.

I remember how I looked with anticipation to the new season release, wondering how the new season set would look, anticipating to see the weapons.

This whole thing is now gone.
There's only the competition for the sake of competition, which as good and nice as it may sound simply fails to deliver as far as an MMO goes, in my opinion.
And maybe not just mine, because even amongst high rated players and pros (and potential ones) I bet there's someone who dropped the ball for this reason, and the empty ladders reflect that.
And this whole jazz is just about items alone, let's just forget how unrewarding the whole mechanical aspect of the game can sometimes be, nowadays.

No rewards == no fun.

Yeah the rewards are awful, why the fuck would I want to get 5 mana pots from a PvP chest (the one you get after winning a game). Just fucking hire some top rated pvpers to clean this mess up.

[cface]

rewards? Really, rewards is why you think pvp is low? It might be a factor sure (low one), but class design and pruning fucked me up big time. They took it all away, and gave some of it back in a form of honor grind, many talents which are just lame passives.

I have never played pvp as little as now, while before I used to grind several alts in full catchup gear and just continue to enjoy it because the class was fun to play. The carrot was that the class was fun to play.

[Deleted]

Seems to me PvP was always unbalanced and people were always complaining, less in 3v3 though. Still the same.

[Deleted]

rewards?
The carrot was that the class was fun to play.

That may hold true for you and me and some people. But the majority of the community is lured to certain content due to the rewards this same content provides.
It's the mob that fills the spots, and to me, mechanical satisfaction came long after casually getting into PvP because Lady Vashj refused to drop me the healing mace and I needed an upgrade.

That's really all there is to it. Good rewards == more people play PvP. Some stick around to play the high quality PvP, some go back to their favored game mode.
Great incentives make for greater numbers.