Blizzard and PvP: Incompetent or Focused on Bottom Line?

[Kazuchika]

I don't even PvP and even from the outside before today I'd have bet my life it's #1

The AP change just has me doubling down on it.

[Tyrean]

That's not an apt comparison. If you're talking about the highest level of PvP (R1/Glad/GM), then 1 Heroic kill in raids is not the same. You would compare something like Mythic raid bosses or wings and having 50 kills ("wins") during the PvP season you're referencing.

I do think that Blizz operates from a strictly profit point of view though as you said: "2.) Blizzard is completely competent, but their focus is on the bottom line..." There may be some mistakes and incompetence along the way, but from miscalculations or wrong assumptions about what the player base will tolerate and how far Blizz can push them in order to maximize profits.

They find that point or go a bit beyond it, then start to pull back from it only if necessary to stop sub loss.

I don't think you understand. Rank 1 is the top .1% of the entire player pool. So if you know how many people got R1, you know how many people total are active PvPers. So the comparison is 100% correct as I am comparing ALL PvPers versus ALL raiders. (minus LFR and random BG heros which is essentially everyone that is participating in coordinated pvp and raiding ).

[Caolela]

I don't think you understand. Rank 1 is the top .1% of the entire player pool. So if you know how many people got R1, you know how many people total are active PvPers. So the comparison is 100% correct as I am comparing ALL PvPers versus ALL raiders. (minus LFR and random BG heros which is essentially everyone that is participating in coordinated pvp and raiding ).

I understand it fine; I'm saying you're not comparing all raiders (including Normal raids) as you are to all PvP'ers playing Rated PvP, and only 1 H raid kill is not the same as 50 Rated wins, or requiring say how many people got 50 Mythic kills. It's not an easy comparison to make because the two formats don't exactly match up, but yes safe to say that more raid than PvP.

I don't think that's the issue at all however. It's Blizz being concerned only for the bottom line in all areas of the game, as you can see it everywhere now - PvE and PvP. Not a matter of what they pay more or less attention to because of which gets more player hours, etc., it's how they can maximize profit period.

[monkmastaeq]

The only answer has to be that they are intentionally trying to kill pvp, no one can be that inept at their jobs and keep them

[Tyrean]

I understand it fine; I'm saying you're not comparing all raiders (including Normal raids) as you are to all PvP'ers playing Rated PvP, and only 1 H raid kill is not the same as 50 Rated wins, or requiring say how many people got 50 Mythic kills. It's not an easy comparison to make because the two formats don't exactly match up, but yes safe to say that more raid than PvP.

I don't think that's the issue at all however. It's Blizz being concerned only for the bottom line in all areas of the game, as you can see it everywhere now - PvE and PvP.

If that is your problem, then the numbers are even more skewed in favor of PvE. I am not sure I understand your issue. You can do 50 rated wins in a couple of days and it is about the same commitment as getting a single heroic raid kill.

[rda]

On the participation front, this is what it looks like...

In NA, it looks like about 50 people got R1 titles as of right now. (I understand that it is "bugged" but it gives us a number to start with). That means that the entire PvP pool of "eligible" players in NA was roughly 50,000 players. Now, you can argue that PvP participation is higher, but that is the rough number of people that won 50 games. That is not a very high benchmark.

Now wowprogress tracks people from the armory to get population numbers. The criteria is that you must be 110, and you must have at least 1 heroic level kill. Those numbers for US are 885,324.

So by that criteria, there are 50,000 PvP players versus 885,324 Heroic or Higher players. That is roughly 18 PvE for every 1 PvP. If You had to invest money, would you invest in something that 1 guy wants, or something that 18 guys want?

Now the corrections.

First, the number of people who got glads is this small because they changed the criteria and so the size of the ladder that you compute from that is skewed. They are going to change the criteria back to what it was. As a result the size of the ladder by your computations will be ~200,000, not 50,000.

Second, the size of the ladder in Legion has sunk dramatically. That's what the threads are about. It used to be 1.5+ times higher for 3v3 and 2-3 times higher (!) for RBG. The entire outrage is because their stupid changes (or non-changes, as in, refusal / inability to fix things) in PVP are decimating the number of players. So, increase these 200,000 to 300,000, which is what the ladder was in the (abysmal and universally derided) WoD and which is a very conservative estimate of what would be "normal" for Legion.

Third, I don't see where you get 885,324 with one heroic kill for US. That sounds awfully inflated. Consider this page:

http://www.wowprogress.com/stats

T16 is SoO, mind you, all tiers after that were smaller because the population declined heavily.

The only numbers that approach 900k are those for the entire player base, not just the US. So, either you quoted the number for all regions - in which case, increase the PVP ladder to at least 600k if your 900k is for US+EU or even higher if your 900k is for US+EU+Asia. Or PVE got such a huge boost in Legion that, yes, it is now several times greater than PVP, but it was not the case before.

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I am not sure I understand your issue. You can do 50 rated wins in a couple of days and it is about the same commitment as getting a single heroic raid kill.

You are smoking crack. A single heroic kill is a matter of doing a PUG in the second part of the expansion. Try getting 50 rated wins (not games, wins) in 3v3. It is miles more effort.

It is completely clear that you don't do arena. It's fine, you don't have to do arena, but since you don't, please don't talk about it. Talk about things that you actually have a clue on.

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Like it or not, Hardcore PvPers are in the minority, they are the only ones who care about PvP balance, most casual PvPers don't, they don't put in enough time to be bothered, PvE players don't care about PvP balance.

You are now changing your point from "PVP players are a minority" to "hardcore PVP players are a minority and they are the only ones who care about balance".

PVP in Legion has issues not just with balance, not sure why you reduce this to balance. It's absolutely clear that it's not only the hardcore by far who are affected by lack of balance and stupidities unrelated to balance - read the threads and, gasp, watch the ladder size (it collapsed).

You have no points. You can't fit your stupid "example" of 80:20 which was the entire reason you made the post anywhere. Neither PVPers are a minority, nor the idiotic changes only affect a minority of them.

[Charge me Doctor]

1.) Blizzard is just incompetent when it comes to PvP. The argument here is that they simply cannot make PvP work.

They can and they did. It's a game with asymmetrical balance, there will always be a meta and underdogs, no matter how close in performance certain compositions will be, there always will be RMP, DK+Ret or beast cleave or whatever.

To back up this argument there are ideas such as the current Meta when it comes to RBG and the state of mistweavers, the current state of melee the game has throughout, simply broken things like DH double jump in maps like Kotmogu where they are the only class capable of going from center to orb without using the stairs, the lack of tuning in the face of separated PvP and PvE templates and talents, the lack of maps, etc.

I see nothing wrong with mistweavers, they are exactly what they are meant to be - very mobile melee healer. Meta not favoring X or Y is simply a way of things going on in MMO.
Again, i see nothing wrong in DH double jump. And they are not the only class capable of "going from center to orb without using the stairs", arcane mage or a warlock can achieve the same (slightly more tricky than tapping spacebar two times, but still doable). Removing things from a game with asymmetric balance that make game balance asymmetric for the sake of balance is.. well, as it sounds - contradictorily. If you don't like games with asymmetrical balance - that's fine, there are plenty of games with symmetrical balance.

Those that were in this camp of thinking were basically on the #holinkasucks bandwagon and thought that everything wrong with PvP can be traced to a lack of understanding of how PvP works and a lack of ability to make changes to fix issues that make PvP not fun or simply unplayable.

I really doubt that people on the internet know more about pvp balance than employees of blizzard who have access to all the statistic they want.

2.) Blizzard is completely competent, but their focus is on the bottom line and PvE sells boxes, not PvP.

Partially this is true - wow is mainly a pve game, pvp is something like pet battles - just alternate activity.

This line of thinking was created by the severe lack of participation this season and the thought that so few people actually PvP for anything other than gear rewards that it is not a wise investment of resources for the company.

I wonder where you get this "few people actually pvp for anything other than gear rewards". Pvp gear is considered shit for pve (since time invested in pvp activity could be spent in m+ with greater effect), so people who do pvp for gear are either delusional or do enjoy pvp more than pve, in this case - system works perfectly fine since they are not forced to do pve to get their gear.

The idea here is that they have some sort of internal numbers that tell them that the vast majority of PvP participation has always been random BGs for easy gear, or the minimum arena requirements each week to get "capped" and buy gear. So eliminating gear outright cut the need for any semblance of PvP balance or functionality.

A lot of pve oriented players felt forced to do pvp because they had no alternative ways to get gear (starting from wotlk. Pvp ret gloves was great example of that since it gave greater boost in damage than anything from ulduar and below before they got nerfed). Now pve players are not forced into pvp to get gear because there are m+ dungeons

This line of thinking is dedicated to the idea that the amount of players that PvP only is so small that it is not worth the resources to cater to them and as such the bare minimum is done to keep it somewhat playable.

players that "pvp only" are rare indeed, since majority of players do not limit their activities to one thing. I can't find a single person in my wide circle of wow-friends who do (or know someone) who does only pvp. So this point is kinda null, because there are plenty non-pvp-only players who participate in pvp because it's... fun. Shocking, i know.

What do you guys think? Do you fall into the first or the second camp? Is there a broader explanation of the current state of PvP that does not fit into either of these two ideas?

I do not like segregate people into "camps". There is contradiction tho, PvP is supposed to be fun, balanced and fair, otherwise you have vanilla PvP, which sucked. I mean, it sucked to be on "receiving" side of PvP in vanilla.
PvP right now is in its best state, since people are not forced into it, people who enjoy PvP are not forced into PvE and it's easy as fuck to participate in it (no gating behind pvp stats or other shit like that). You simply spam "inv for rbg lulz" in chat or click a button and start pwning, like a PvP game should be.
Blizzard completely abandoned its "competitiveness" (which is fine IMO, since they can't balance PvP to the level of hwo balanced competitive game should be), and that's when fun factor started to rise and obsolete parts of PvP system started to fall off (arena or rated BGs, for example), since people used to do them not for fun, but for competitiveness and gear.

TL;DR: PvP is fine right now, it's not gated behind gear, it's pure fun for casuals and it still has some competitiveness left for hardcore pvpers (who started to realize that pvp is not the focus of this game and left for other games with better pvp systems). I can't see how things can go downhill now.

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So this came up as well, the idea that they had goals to meet for the PvE world and they just could not reconcile the two. We had a lot of comments about how much more rewarding the PvE content has been so far between mythic+, World Quests, Raids, etc. There was a notion that PvP was just shoehorned into the PvE world and it was working about as well as it could. The counter argument to this was of course that if they were competent at all they would be able to use the different variables at their disposal to tweak classes such as the pvp stat templates, the PvP talents and of course changes to the PvE talents. Mistweaver got a lot of discussion here because their strength seemed to be tied mostly to the PvE talent mistwalking that allows them to teleport to a friendly unit with two charges. The thought has been that if that single talent were in line they would be okay, and that the talent is not normally taken for PvE content anyway.

Bold part is very much true. PvE players who were capped had little to nothing to do outside of raiding, and when they didn't raid - they ganked people. Blizzard added BGs to stop that inconvenience for losing side (or the side that wasn't interested in participation at this exact time).

They can't completely separate PvE from PvP. State templates work only in instanced PvP, i even remember seeing blue posts in TBC about "why don't you make abilities do X damage to NPC and Y damage to players?", which said something along the "it will require a lot of processing power from our and client side to do, so we limited it to CC only but will look into it in future", which they did, in legion we have PvP templates and PvP talents working pretty much how people asked back in TBC. It isn't like blizzard just didn't do that, they didn't do that because they either lacked resources or knowledge (IMO).

PvE content rewards you with gear, gear is required to progress and customize your character. This pace of progression and type of customization hurts PvP, so this part was removed almost completely (you can't customize your stats at all in PvP), but it creates more balanced (aka, a lot of levels to tune balance) PvP.
PvE is rewarded with better gear for easier progress and better performance (as it should), while PvP is rewarded with titles and unique (somewhat) cosmetic items (which is much more flashy that a statstick of a gear piece), which is more balanced than having PvP players have better gear and win simply by having objectively stronger character (no amount of skill will help you beat a warrior as a warrior if your gear is one season worse than your opponents, but if the difference in stats is only 5% - it's manageable)

[rda]

TL;DR: PvP is fine right now, it's not gated behind gear, it's pure fun for casuals and it still has some competitiveness left for hardcore pvpers (who started to realize that pvp is not the focus of this game and left for other games with better pvp systems). I can't see how things can go downhill now.

Sorry, I can not resist.

[klaps_05]

Whenever they decide to address the latest bullshit change with 35+ traits, they will write this, you can quote me:

"Yes, your average PvEr will have 54 traits faster, but the dedicated PvPers who are at maximum 35 due to alts/specs will still do better as they are more skilled and the 15%ish difference in damage will not be so big"

I was casually doing WoD for the storylines before Legion, then got alpha and was really excited as PvP seemed quite fast paced and fun. Since legion launched, outside of warden towers i cba doing bgs or arenas.

[rda]

^^ Yeah, I love it.

"Artifact traits at 35 points and above are now enabled in PvP"

Since tons of people who bother to comment their 2c don't know how to do math, here's the difference between artifact level 35 (which was the target for PVPers because why level higher, there was a cap) and artifact level 54 (which is where top PVEers are - the non-top are a mere couple of points behind due to effort increasing exponentially):

Damage: 14.5%.
Health: 15%.

For perspective, again because many people who bother to voice their opinion don't know what the numbers were, the whole difference between full conquest (absolute top you could possibly get) and full honor (starting gear, just above quest greens, obtained in a couple of evenings in WoD) prior to Legion was on the level of 10% give or take, depending on the season. So, we are looking at just ONE CHANGE to one factor out of several that give you power in Legion exceeding the WHOLE power difference prior to Legion.

GG

Instead of fixing things - of which there are metric tons to fix - patch 7.1.5 does a lip job to alts with AK items (not enough by far, but better than nothing) and then breaks things HARDER with completely braindead changes like the one above.

If they don't revert this, I don't even want to look at the size of ladder in season 2. There is bound to be another double-digit loss.

[Lightbull]

The "get rid of 35+ trait in PvP" argument is just as stupid as the "get rid of ilvl boosting stats in PvP" argument. Notice that no one has talked about the latter in months.

Also I don't understand how people can call Blizzard incompetent. They are game developers that have been in the game development industry for years. No matter how stupid some design aspects look, they clearly know better than us. Absolutely impossible NOT to be that.

[rda]

The "get rid of 35+ trait in PvP" argument is just as stupid as the "get rid of ilvl boosting stats in PvP" argument. Notice that no one has talked about the latter in months.

Also I don't understand how people can call Blizzard incompetent. They are game developers that have been in the game development industry for years. No matter how stupid some design aspects look, they clearly know better than us. Absolutely impossible NOT to be that.

What?

PVE gear being better in PVP due to ilvl has been objected to widely, look at the threads. Lifting the cap for artifact traits in PVP is insanely stupid.

Blizzard PVP devs are completely incompetent (or malicious - choose your poison) because the changes they are doing - like the one above - are completely braindead. Really, one sentence which nobody expected and Holinka managed to shit on all hopes of every PVPer ever for any positive changes coming forward. Because the change is a complete disaster and because it is clear that people who are making changes like that (and are hiding them until the last moment, too) won't fix anything, it is pointless to even hope. All they are good for is ruining it.

[Deleted]

The "get rid of 35+ trait in PvP" argument is just as stupid as the "get rid of ilvl boosting stats in PvP" argument. Notice that no one has talked about the latter in months.

Also I don't understand how people can call Blizzard incompetent. They are game developers that have been in the game development industry for years. No matter how stupid some design aspects look, they clearly know better than us. Absolutely impossible NOT to be that.

Yeah, you know , there is a thing that many people play alts in PvP and all their specs...so they make that progress based in what they know.
Now we knew that 34lvl is the limit for PvP, so we went and did alts and OSs... then before patch day they said FU, 35+ traits available...
If people knew that from the start and clear, as it should be, noone would have spend time playing alts or investing to OSs, they would just farm their main and MS to 54...
So yes, they are not incompetent, they are worthless and they don't know fkn shit about what are they doing... because it's like telling people don't sub again because we shit on your time invested...

[cqwrteur]

What?

PVE gear being better in PVP due to ilvl has been objected to widely, look at the threads. Lifting the cap for artifact traits in PVP is insanely stupid.

Blizzard PVP devs are completely incompetent (or malicious - choose your poison) because the changes they are doing - like the one above - are completely braindead. Really, one sentence which nobody expected and Holinka managed to shit on all hopes of every PVPer ever for any positive changes coming forward. Because the change is a complete disaster and because it is clear that people who are making changes like that (and are hiding them until the last moment, too) won't fix anything, it is pointless to even hope. All they are good for is ruining it.

LOL. Another troll trying to argue PVP is 3v3. Arena need die. Let market clean it away.

[Deleted]

TL;DR: PvP is fine right now, it's not gated behind gear, it's pure fun for casuals and it still has some competitiveness left for hardcore pvpers (who started to realize that pvp is not the focus of this game and left for other games with better pvp systems). I can't see how things can go downhill now.

I read your whole comment. You're definitely smart and able to connect the dots therefore provide logical feedback - something that most folks in this community simply cannot. However, I cannot help but notice that your point of view, while making complete sense, is the wrong one.

First thing to note is that people are stupid and biased. For example, at the start of WoD I wouldn't enjoy PvP at all. Class design was dumbed down beyond recognition yet this wasn't my major issue. My issue was something I noticed in early alpha and didn't start changing up until 6.1 and eventually got resolved kind-of in 6.2 - this was the low damage. You would do so little damage in PvP, even while bursting, that it wouldn't feel rewarding at all. It was kind of balanced, of course, because healers weren't healing for much either. The most peculiar thing, however, were how people were so fixated on their end-performance (whether they were able to win a certain arena, or whether they have died to a certain class) instead of their actual enjoyment of the game that most of them screamed for nerfs - which led to the blanked damage and healing nerfs. Thankfully, ilvls shot up in the sky, and the nerfs were reverted (not because the damage became even more pathetic but rather because people were upset of the idea that such blanket adjustments affected certain underperforming specs as well) and the game became playable. It's kind of the same in Legion.. There are healers everywhere complaining about how dps is over the charts and the damage of most specs should be nerfed, yet dps has never been lower (with the exception of the start of WoD). Back in WotLK, MoP, late-WoD, even Cata, you've always been to burst someone from 100 to 0 in less than 3 seconds if you align everything perfectly and that was the beauty of it. However, trinkets, class defensives, healing capabilities, CC and mobility came into place that made it so that competent people could avoid being bursted in 3 seconds and enjoy a nice arena match, for example. But people are sheep... Most of them would never suggest to buff healers, introduce more defensives back into the game, reduce nonsense mobility (like 5 gap-closers fury warriors wtf?).. they would just simply scream OH GAWD, DH ONE-SHOT ME FROM 30% to 0%, I DON'T EVEN HEAL THAT MUCH, NERF DH DAMAGE. I'll tell you something - hitting like a wet noodle does not feel good either. Not defending DHs, I'm not even playing this expansion that much... it's just that most people are so biased that their opinions are worth nothing.

Second, PvP hasn't been easily accessible in the past - I second that. While I was younger and played 24/7 that was no issue because I liked PvP and had the appropriate time to invest in it. Now as I'm much older and have a job, serious girlfriend, a dog, responsibilities, etc. I don't have much time and as I suppose - most PvPers that have sticked around through the years feel kind of the same. However, making the game more accessible by using templates that force you to play in a CERTAIN way and not think about anything but smashing those damn buttons, reducing the number of abilities so that the game is easily playable by a clicker 6-year old as well, and removing some spells just because their design is confusing to some players (i.e. Symbiosis in MoP - literally the explanation for its removal) isn't the way. They've removed the whole RPG element into a game and turned it more into a MOBA than anything else. If they invested some resources into esports, if they made a solo-queue system, hell... even if they went the Guild Wars way and made you be able to instant level a character to max level for PvP activities only - that would make it a lot accessible without removing any much needed depth.

While on that topic - you said it was "pure fun for casuals". But may I ask you what does fun mean exactly? Or you are yet again one of those people that take enjoyment solely in the end-result of the match - therefore the easier it is to win with less effort - the more fun it is? I'll tell you what is fun:

- Take a look at feral vs feral duels back in WotLK for example. You would start the match by applying Faerie Fire to the other druid so that he doesn't stealth after a CC and reopen on you with a Pounce. Even though Rip and Rake hit like a truck and increased the damage of your Shreds you would just Mangle (or you had the option the turn around and Shred for not having to deal with the tremendous amounts of Dodge) until 5 combo points (or even 3-4, which was kind of a gamble) to Savage Roar just so you could proc a Predator's Swiftness and instant Hibernate the other druid. You would've dealt less damage to him up to this point but at least he hasn't had any dots on and was able to be be hibernated (because hibernate broke on damage, even dots). This gave you a huge window to heal up (Regrowth into Rejuvenation and 1-2 Lifeblooms on top of that - HoT management was a huge thing as well). If he was dumb enough he would've gotten carried away with damaging you so he wouldn't have reapplied Faerie Fire so you Hibernate again - he is either stuck on another DR'd hibernate or shifts out of form to prevent it therefore leaving himself vulnerable (because bear form is bear form... and there was a talent that reduced damage taken in cat form by 20% while stunned)... so you immediately Cyclone after that. If you were good enough you could Cyclone him a second time just after the first one finished before he could take any action whatsoever (go into bear form or faerie fire you) and by that time your Faerie Fire debuff would be down and you would restealth and Pounce him, starting from scratch and giving yourself a huge lead. Dropping down to low health he would go into bear form to desperately Bash you (because there was no Bash in cat form before and he doesn't have enough combo points for a Maim), Cyclone you from the stun and heal himself but you would keep your position facing him so that you have the best chance to dodge the Bash and mess him up. He would then pop Survival Instincts and Frenzied Regeneration as his last resort but you would just slow him and kite away in cat form. He can't get out of bear form cause the healing will stop. He feral charges you but there is still something called powershifting so you anticipate that and shapeshift at the right moment of the bear charge root breaking it before he has even come to you and not let him touch you at all. He would need to hit you to get rage and his heal requires it. But he can't get to you so he pops Enrage which gives him some rage while leaving him more vulnerable to physical damage. He is slowed and have wasted his bear charge (which was the only way to interrupt as well by the way - required tons of skill and felt super rewarding) so while he's slowed you just run some more and freecast a Cyclone right in his face or just Hibernate and force him out of bear form. And that's only one way this could go... You could save up a Predatory Swiftness proc for when he goes into bear form to heal and instant cyclone him stopping most of the benefit from said heal. If you waited too long and he managed to Bash you in the last second, though, the proc would fall off and he would have the upper hand as he made you waste a precious proc. This duel would go for quite a long time until you ran out of mana because Leader of the Pack's mana regeneration could no longer sustain you and you have to Innervate (which actually existed for ferals, and unlike MoP, for example it actually restored mana) which was another spell you had to play around a lot with (don't allow getting Cycloned or if playing versus someone with dispel/spellsteal - stack obsolete buffs on top of that so that it doesn't get removed as easily - or rather make sure your opponent is in CC for the duration).

- Or even a MoP example - the last time the game had some depth while not as much as in WotLK. Ret Paladin vs Arms Warrior duels. Most of the time you couldn't even get through his Second Wind below 35% health without using cooldowns, even more so if he knew how and when to rotate his defensive cooldowns. Most people would just stun and pop wings at the start and lose. But if you knew what you were doing you would prolongue the duel as much as you can until he safely gets to 35%. You had tremendous kite potential using Judgments (there was a glyph that made it apply a short slow), Hand of Freedom right into a charge removing the stun before it even landed, and Seal of Justice (slow on melee attacks). Even if the warrior connected for a mere second it could mean a lot of damage because of the huge bleed damage from Mortal Strike/Colossus Smash but running around like a bitch and spamming Judgement, Exorcism and Holy Prism/Executioner's Sentence gave you both Holy Power for Word of Glory and stack of Selfless Healer for instant Flash of Light so you could deal with it. Eventually, after he is frustrated as hell you stun him at 35% health and pop wings, he immediately trinkets and pops a defensive - you kite away. You were smart enough to pop only the more visual cd though - you still have Holy Avenger and the guardian so after 30 seconds, if you live until the next stun - he dies. There was a huge outplay potential for the warrior as well... Chaining so many defensive cds as well as predicting HoJ and spell reflecting it, etc... made the duel super balanced and each party could win at any time.

MoP had some of the class design depth removed but there were A TON of buttons to click and both duels and arena were more balanced then ever. Every class felt OP and rewarding - but that's the greatest accomplishment of balance - all classes feeling good and OP, therefore balance cause OP vs OP balances itself out. Stripping away everything from everyone making your class feel not enjoyable at all and underpowered is most definitely not the correct design path.

Third, when talking about nostalgic duel scenarios - in Legion duels and World PvP are officially dead because everyone oneshots you due to the stat templates not even being activated. And let's not talk about World PvP - before MoP when you actually had a reason to go out in the world (even while leveling - before leveling became dungeon queuing) - 1v4ing, for example, would feel soooo rewarding. I had the pleasure to play a Night Elf Feral Druid as my first character in WotLK. Instant Cyclone, Shadowmeld into Flight Form in Northrend, etc... gave me so many possibilities you can't even imagine. People would call on their guilds and I would 1v10 them (not even kidding). Then they would come with even more people, some of them vastly outgearing me so I would bring my guildmates and friends as well.. And there you have it - you have just created a World PvP battleground and you shall forever remember it as one of your fondest gaming memories.

I have never PvP'd exclusively - I take pleasure in PvE as well and respect it unlike most PvP'ers around here. It's just that the game is becoming more of a MOBA than anything else which hurts literally every single aspect of the game. Nowadays you barely deal damage with your 3 remaining rotational skills. You occasionally deal damage with a cooldown damaging-ability (most of the cases the artifact ability) and it just feels plain stupid. How come you deal 5% of someone's health with all of your skills and there's a SINGLE BUTTON on a cooldown that straight-up removes 50% of their health (this shit started in WoD when abilities that should have never been about damage became the HIGHEST DAMAGE SOURCE OF THE CLASS - Fire Mages with Fire Breath and Blast Wave, and WW Monks with Chi Torpedo and Chi Burst, for example, being their highest damage abilities. That design just feels wrong. Nowadays you have just damage, damage and more damage. You play a feral druid, you get a Predatory Swiftness proc - all you can do is use it on Healing Touch, healing you for 5% of your hp (wow, so cool!). You have some dumbed down cool mechanics placed as Honor Talents but they're mostly just some returning old spells being dumbed down from their original versions. You have no RPG control over your character. And the most important thing - you don't even get to duel or world pvp anymore - the two most fun aspects of PvP.



btw In the meantime - you can't even create template max level characters on the PTR anymore either. Even if I wanted to PvP in this game I wouldn't level all my 15 characters to 110 and grind their artifact power and honor talents before I could even access their abilities. I wouldn't PvP with a single character either - that's like playing a MOBA with the same character every time. The limited class design can't even keep me a straight 2 consecutive hours on the same toon. PTR was the only thing that kept me around in WoD. Now it's gone as well.

[Charge me Doctor]

@bloodknight2012
i agree on your first part, PvP because too "long", but "short" PvP is impossible to balance (outside of everyone being a paladin and having a bubble of sorts), so... there is that. I really dislike watching wow arena at blizzcon, it's just a snorefest of mirror matchups doing some thing until someones crits 4 times in a row or something.

I don't know, they didn't removed RPG element, it's still there if you look at the game on big scale (aka, outside of your single character, but instead look at your set of characters). Also, RPG PvP is boring as fuck to be honest, i'll just take any sort of PvP except that one. You comparison to GW is valid but GW is a PvP-oriented game, while WoW is PvE oriented game, then never ever came up with a system like this and never planned on making one, so creating it now is not really feasible (probably same issue as how hardcoded 16 slot backpack is in the game now).

Back in classic there was a rule of thumb for druids - don't fight other druids. It would take ages and you wouldn't kill each other, So druids of different faction did just that - ignored each other. On a fun-scale: i speak about enjoyment and emotions while playing. About yelling at your computer while standing in frost nova and watching a frost mage at 19% health casting shit at you. Or your blood pumping while you frost nova a 100 rage warrior and have this one window of opporutnity to burst him down and think about next step before he executes you after a charge. The most fun BG i have today is alterac, because of its huge scale, when i talk about fun i'm not talking about easy or easier wins, i talk about feeling good while doing PvP. Not angry about getting killed by 2,4 ambush crit while having 2k health yourself. Not scary when you get into a BG with all greens. Not frustrated after sitting 20 minutes under a flag on Arathi.

I disagree about MoP PvP - it was clunky, too much CC flying around, it needed to be cut down because it dragged fights endlessly and being CCd is least fun part of PvP especially when it happens 7 out of 10 seconds of the fight.

I also don't think that duels were relevant ever, since obvious advantage of one class over another.

Ideal variant of PvP for wow is exactly that - dota-like experience. You jump into a PvP activity "naked" and equal to others so you can compete with your skill, not auto-win with gear and enchants.
Now to burst someone down you need suns to line up (or take obvious paths for bursts), and/or coordinate with your teammates. Root (with a predatory swiftness instant) the warrior behind the pillar and chase healer to the other side while your teammates are working on him full duration silence into a stun - bam, dead. There are still options to burst people down, it just doesn't work all the time because of other players reacting to your burst. Which drags the arena games for too long. And th'at why most of CC, damage and personal CDs was cut out.

Can;t you create a character on tournament real tho? I never actually used these but i thought that you don't carry over your character here, you just create template one.

[LaserChild9]

You are now changing your point from "PVP players are a minority" to "hardcore PVP players are a minority and they are the only ones who care about balance".

PVP in Legion has issues not just with balance, not sure why you reduce this to balance. It's absolutely clear that it's not only the hardcore by far who are affected by lack of balance and stupidities unrelated to balance - read the threads and, gasp, watch the ladder size (it collapsed).

You have no points. You can't fit your stupid "example" of 80:20 which was the entire reason you made the post anywhere. Neither PVPers are a minority, nor the idiotic changes only affect a minority of them.

You are grasping at straws here lol. You are finding reasons to argue. Whether its 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 or some other ratio the fact of the matter is, people who care about PvP in wow are in the smaller section of the population. Thats a fact. If you want to argue that go right ahead, but logically, if the people who cared about PvP were anything but a minority of the population, Blizzard would not focus so much of their time and effort on PvE, how hard is it to get that through your head? Blizzard is a business, a business needs to make a profit, to make a profit you cater your product to the largest demand.

You are literally just repeating yourself "PvP players aren't a minority" "80:20 derp". Rather than just repeat these phrases, how about you change it up and give me some facts or figures. I don't care about whats wrong with PvP, neither do the majority of the player-base, because if they did, Blizzard would be bending over backwards to accommodate them and take their money, but they aren't. I'm not saying that you have no right to be angry about the state of PvP, but spewing insults about the dev team being incompetent, or insulting people that are trying to explain why more time is not spent on pvp, is not proof of anything other than the fact you are childish and petty.

[rda]

You are grasping at straws here lol. You are finding reasons to argue. Whether its 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 or some other ratio the fact of the matter is, people who care about PvP in wow are in the smaller section of the population. Thats a fact.

You wanted to say something other than "I assume that the number of PVPers is less than 50%, so they are a 'minority'"? If so, say it.

PS: This:

"I don't care about whats wrong with PvP, neither do the majority of the player-base, because if they did, Blizzard would be bending over backwards to accommodate them and take their money, but they aren't."

...is stupid. (And wrong, obviously. But first and foremost stupid. Go take a logic class.)

[LaserChild9]

You wanted to say something other than "I assume that the number of PVPers is less than 50%, so they are a 'minority'"? If so, say it.

I think you will find that the very definition of minority is 'the smaller part or number; a number, part, or amount forming less than half of the whole.', it's not an assumption, its in the dictionary and everything. I'm honestly not sure how you expected that go...

PS: This:

"I don't care about whats wrong with PvP, neither do the majority of the player-base, because if they did, Blizzard would be bending over backwards to accommodate them and take their money, but they aren't."

...is stupid. (And wrong, obviously. But first and foremost stupid. Go take a logic class.)

Please explain how this is stupid or wrong? You make statements then don't back them up. It is logical for a business to spend more resources on what the majority (Majority means the bigger number btw) of their customers want, they want as much return business as possible, how is this illogical? I think you need to buy a dictionary, you didn't know the definition of minority and you seem to have logic confused with something else.

Backup your arguments, you are literally just throwing out statements with no evidence which just makes you look like a moron that just cant admit hes wrong.

[rda]

Sum total, "the definition of a minority is less than half" is all you wanted to say. Thanks for the big thought, dear, where we'd be without you.