PvP being neglected - just awful

[Wilfire]

Why does Blizzard think that PvP is in an okay state at the moment? It's not about class balance, it's about being able to play it. Blizzard markets WoW as the biggest MMO on the market, but if you try to find a group for RBGs be ready to sit in the queue for hours. And that's during the prime time. There are literally zero RBG groups outside the prime time. The only times when you can find an RBG group are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 18:00 to 22:00. And even then there will be maybe 5 groups queuing and you'll get farmed by a dedicated RBG guild.

RBGs are a feature of WoW. How in the hell is it okay to market WoW as a "massive multiplayer online game" when half the time you can't even find a group to play? This is a disaster and many people agree. Ask any longtime PvPer and they'll tell you, look, RBGs were a great feature during Cata and MoP and PvPers loved RBGs. There was a panel at Blizzcon 2010 and they said that RBGs would be a new feature. They never said during WoD or Legion development that RBGs would no longer be a feature - but that's effectively what happened.

Same goes for arena. in MoP I could yolo my 100 wins for a mount in an afternoon. Now I spend an hour in the queue just to make a group and then get farmed by pros at 1500 rating. People just can't be bothered anymore. Blizzard needs to either 1) scrap PvP completely and stop marketing it as a feature; 2) keep incentivizing PvP participation until it hits Cata and MoP levels again; 3) scrap team-based queuing and make skirmishes and normal BGs rated instead. PvP can't be left in the state it is currently.

For you PvErs out there, try finding a pug for M+ or NH or EN outside the prime time and see if you can say with a straight face that this is a "massive multiplayer online game". This is awful.

[sosleapy]

Because that is the way wow is always has been more emphasis on pve content. PVP is not the main selling point of wow.

[Frosteye]

Because that is the way wow is always has been more emphasis on pve content. PVP is not the main selling point of wow.

Actually PVP was a fairly big focus even in Vanilla WoW. It might not have received the same amount of content, but the faction separation was a core part of the game. Horde only had Shamans, Alliance only had Paladins.

I would say this is becoming less and less so however -- there is too much cooperation between the Horde and Alliance in recent expansions.


That being said, PVP has taken the backseat the last couple expansions for sure. Right now there aren't enough PVP Rewards for the average joe, so participation is extremely low.

[sosleapy]

join a guild that is PVP oriented guild with a RBG team...I know of alot of people that random que for arenas and do just fine. maybe you need to learn to be better at the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually PVP was a fairly big focus even in Vanilla WoW. It might not have received the same amount of content, but the faction separation was a core part of the game. Horde only had Shamans, Alliance only had Paladins.

I would say this is becoming less and less so however -- there is too much cooperation between the Horde and Alliance in recent expansions.



That being said, PVP has taken the backseat the last couple expansions for sure. Right now there aren't enough PVP Rewards for the average joe, so participation is extremely low.

you are correct in vanilla it was a part of it. I did pvp to get a sword because it was better than raid content. but there was also not RBG or arena. They did this for the more dedicated individuals to pvp.

[Dahij]

Why does Blizzard think that PvP is in an okay state at the moment? It's not about class balance, it's about being able to play it. Blizzard markets WoW as the biggest MMO on the market, but if you try to find a group for RBGs be ready to sit in the queue for hours. And that's during the prime time. There are literally zero RBG groups outside the prime time. The only times when you can find an RBG group are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 18:00 to 22:00. And even then there will be maybe 5 groups queuing and you'll get farmed by a dedicated RBG guild.

RBGs are a feature of WoW. How in the hell is it okay to market WoW as a "massive multiplayer online game" when half the time you can't even find a group to play? This is a disaster and many people agree. Ask any longtime PvPer and they'll tell you, look, RBGs were a great feature during Cata and MoP and PvPers loved RBGs. There was a panel at Blizzcon 2010 and they said that RBGs would be a new feature. They never said during WoD or Legion development that RBGs would no longer be a feature - but that's effectively what happened.

Same goes for arena. in MoP I could yolo my 100 wins for a mount in an afternoon. Now I spend an hour in the queue just to make a group and then get farmed by pros at 1500 rating. People just can't be bothered anymore. Blizzard needs to either 1) scrap PvP completely and stop marketing it as a feature; 2) keep incentivizing PvP participation until it hits Cata and MoP levels again; 3) scrap team-based queuing and make skirmishes and normal BGs rated instead. PvP can't be left in the state it is currently.

For you PvErs out there, try finding a pug for M+ or NH or EN outside the prime time and see if you can say with a straight face that this is a "massive multiplayer online game". This is awful.

The genre is MMORPG, doesnt matter if theres 1k players or 1 billion.

[Dracullus]

I think they just give up. Seriously, I've never seen PVP community happy with any current patch.

[sosleapy]

I think they just give up. Seriously, I've never seen PVP community happy with any current patch.

QFT!!

PVP has to be hardest thing for mmo to get right. Even only pvp focused mmo's are not balanced and done right...

[Deleted]

Actually PVP was a fairly big focus even in Vanilla WoW. It might not have received the same amount of content, but the faction separation was a core part of the game. Horde only had Shamans, Alliance only had Paladins.

I would say this is becoming less and less so however -- there is too much cooperation between the Horde and Alliance in recent expansions.

That has nothing to do with PvP at all, that's lore stuff. PvP on vanilla was one patch out of 13, thats how "big" pvp was (or is). There is no focus on PvP and is not good because blizzard knows the system is shit for PvP to the point they don't even try to balance. This xpac had the most PvP focus in years (pvp talents, brawls, new reward system...) yet it is still not even 10% of the game content and has a lot less people interested than PvE. At this point Blizz is just throwing bones to Pvp players so they don't bark, but that's about it.

[Deleted]

Because that is the way wow is always has been more emphasis on pve content. PVP is not the main selling point of wow.

That's why there are Arena championships at every Blizzcon and they are trying their best to keep it alive as an "e-sport" right?
No, they definitely want to push PvP, but are failing very hard at it.
Also previous xpacks had far better, healthier and more popular PvP. It is a major step back.

[Deleted]

Why does Blizzard think that PvP is in an okay state at the moment?

Do they? There's been a whole bunch of PvP related tuning in the patches and hotfixes. Have they actually said that they think PvP is in OK state anywhere?

- - - Updated - - -

I think they just give up. Seriously, I've never seen PVP community happy with any current patch.

PvP community is never happy. Ashran was completely butchered by the community in WoD. Now it's all of a sudden "the best thing that has ever happened".

[McNeil]

There's a reason why Legion is seeing a huge decline in PvP activity. I'm not even going to bother participating unless its for a weekly quest or something.

[Golden]

Why does Blizzard think that PvP is in an okay state at the moment? It's not about class balance, it's about being able to play it. Blizzard markets WoW as the biggest MMO on the market, but if you try to find a group for RBGs be ready to sit in the queue for hours.

Well, there have been talks about added a solo queue to RBGs. If they do that, hopefully they will just merge random BGs with rated BGs. Rating already acts like a type of "sports league". I have to believe that new players playing with/against other new players is a good thing, and experienced players playing with/against other experienced players is also a good thing. In truth, this could fix problems in both areas of content.

[Sevyvia]

The more they specialize, the more they reduce the pool of people who actually want to PvP. PvP used to be something I did casually, and to this day, I still do not like or care about arenas. When I was forced to do them, I stuck exclusively to 2s. This was made no longer good enough. At that point, I pretty much decided to throw in the towel. Goalpost kept moving, and it was only moving away from what I found fun - random BGs and duels. Balance moved away from that as well, which only made it even less fun to participate in.

Yes, it's important that there's a competitive layer for people to aspire to and participate in - if they want to. But the people that go to that layer come from a much wider pool of casual people, and that pool has been shit on for year upon year.

[ItachiZaku]

No one really cares about arena or RBGs anymore, we have brawls.

[Joti]

PvP community is never happy. Ashran was completely butchered by the community in WoD. Now it's all of a sudden "the best thing that has ever happened".

That's a pretty sketchy example. Ashran in it's present form has had quite a few changes made from it's original state. The biggest problem the PvP community had with it was that you had to run Ashran for weekly conquest cap. That led to collusion between the factions, Horde would take side events, Alliance the main road, and you'd get yelled at if you actually tried to PvP. It's because they fixed those issues and tweaked a few other things that people love it so much now.

[Deleted]

No one really cares about arena or RBGs anymore, we have brawls.

More like no one really cares about WoW anymore. WoW in general is ghost town.

[Cosmic Janitor]

QFT!!

PVP has to be hardest thing for mmo to get right. Even only pvp focused mmo's are not balanced and done right...

Because the goals of PvP are fundamentally in oppostion to most RPG mechanics.
- Story as next to no place in it.
- As long as gear matters balance will be impossible.
- If you remove gear dependency then character progression goes out the window.
- You can never balance properly with classes, either it works with team comps or it works 1v1.
- Having PvP loadouts in open world next to PvE is not possible for the most part, ergo WPvP is a shit show.
- Balancing PvE and PvP under the same umbrella does not work (which we saw during the past 12 years..)

[meumaxu]

ghost town LUL never seen so many players queing for pvp like im seeing this xpac

[The7]

They never did so much for pvp before like they're doing in legion. If that's neglect, i don't know what you're expecting. A whole pvp focused game, perharps? Have you tried overwatch or heroes of the storm?

[Deleted]

Actually PVP was a fairly big focus even in Vanilla WoW.

On the contrary. In Vanilla pvp wasnt existend at all besides wpvp.

@Wilfire: join a pvp guild. rbg/arena is not meant to be solo/pug content.