Why does a majority of the WoW population avoid pvp?

[Deleted]

I'm about prestige 6, rank 44 and i hardly ever do it... why?

Casual pvp is extremely frustrating to do; either you get grouped with people who steamroll the opponents, or far more likely people who just get steamrolled... (Can't count all the times i was highest on healing meter as ret pally in legion.

Rated pvp on the other hand is extremely frustrating to get into; everyone and their grandmother keeps requesting 2k or 2.2k experience players... i just don't have the nerves to get trough them.

[shocktrooprx]

vanilla same server battlegrounds were amazing fun. there was lots of back and forth but mostly some respect. when they moved it away from that it just killed it for me. it lost its "community" feel to it for me.

[niil945]

I started off playing EverQuest shortly before they made the no rules PvP Server of Talon Zek and immediately moved there when it opened up. After that I played Shadowbane, a free for all pvp mmo where guilds vied for alliances and domination as they sieged and destroyed everything the other guilds had built. And then, as a group, we came to WoW where I started on a PvP server but after 3 or 4 years I moved to PvE. Here's why.

There's zero risk or reason. In EQ pvp on Talon Zek people could loot one item off another person's corpse. On top of that, they would then have to go get their corpse while naked and significantly reduced health and damage output to loot what was left. Death resulted in experience loss which could delevel people, even in PvP. With tracking we could tell who was in the zone and there was no cross server sharding or other funky tech. See Invisible was a common spell that revealed both invisible and stealthed characters. If you saw certain names on tracking you knew to be careful cause they were coming. If you were vigilant you could never be surprised. Raid zones and dungeons were not instanced, we would assault other guilds raids of hate, fear, etc. We'd wipe them out. There was collision detection. We had fatties (ogres and trolls) on my faction and we'd have a team sit at the zone line so people couldn't pass through them and defend the zone for us while we farmed raid bosses. PvP mattered because it was controlling area, controlling raid bosses, controlling dungeons and there were often significant risks for those involved.

In Shadowbane everything someone carried in their pack was fair game, equipment took damage and when repaired reduced the maximum durability each time even through pvp until it just broke, and it was a large open world that took a while to get back to. When one died they would return to their bind spot which could be very far away. We could also detect stealthed people via tracking, but only a specific subclass had the skills to unstealth someone. Others could try to aoe but that was a complete crapshoot. Thieves could actually sneak up on a group and loot an item out of their backpack via Pickpocket. It would make them fade in and out a second in front of you if you were facing where they were picking your pockets from. Tracking would tell us what direction someone was but not how far. We fought over world resources that were used to make better equipment, build our town, build defenses, etc. We fought over good leveling spots. Again, there was a reason to pvp and there were risks in doing so. And the risks weren't just "ohnos my equipment and gold" as the game was very political, alliances and whatnot, and you didn't want to be the reason a war was declared between factions. That spawned these chaotic groups that would attack anyone and everyone who were always on the move, never built a town, they would just prey on people in whatever area of the world they were in at the moment, if they died and ended up on the other side of the world that's where they'd start hunting at next. In short, pvp mattered, there were risks, there were rewards. Not entirely sustainable, but when I was in college I remember getting a phone call at like 4am to help defend our town because a group was trying to batter down our walls in the middle of the night before we had it magically protected (we were building up to that but needed resources). I remember 6 hours of running around the wall of an allied capital as an archer, shooting down Furies who had the ability to make their group fly which would cause them all to crash to the ground, as we defended it from a siege. Everyone had a job to do and as an archer mine was on the wall. Losing that battle would have meant our main ally would have had their city burned to the ground.

To put it simply, world pvp balance has gone to hell over the years and there's no point aside from griefing. Griefing is not pvp. That's just losers who want to gank people who can't fight back. Nothing more, nothing less. Stealth is just invisibility in this game and it's lame as all hell. No one risks anything. No one gains anything. It's all about screwing with people who are trying to do something in the world and that's it. Instanced PvP is a mild distraction at times for me, very rarely, but occasionally I dabble in it. Still, it's entirely meaningless. There's no risk. There's reward regardless, though better for the winning team. It's just a hamster wheel people willingly get into and run that in no way comes close to capturing the essence of real, meaningful, and dangerous world pvp from other games I've played.

[Zaanm4n]

Call me ignorant I guess, but i've read that only about 5-10% of players participate in pvp like arena / battlegrounds etc. I've always been curious about this. Do WoW players just hate PVP in general or do they get more joy out of slaying dragons instead? Someone help me out here. btw I participate in both pve and pvp. I like both aspects of the game a lot.

Well use to be a hardcore pvper/arena dint get too high however most I did was 2k .. but still use to pvp all day. Then legion came and I tried getting use to the whole PvP template thing but II hated it. I told myself I just need to get to lvl 50 honor so I did. And then I still hated it.

So for me? Well.. instance PvP was the end of things. I still however kill every alliance I see on sight in open world .. So I guess that's good !! But yeah I don't bother with the whole Instance pvp thing. I know some people think it makes no diff but the kind of playing I do hitting people yes players in open world for 1mill odd then going in and hitting tht same thing for 400k is kinda a boner killer for me. so yeah. Hope that helped your query !!

[satimy]

World pvp was active until Crz on my realm. Now it's just raids of people that camp outside of New raids from different servers.

[beaver1024]

I don't PvP in WoW and I hate it primarily because classes and racials are not balanced. I don't feel like I had a fair go when I'm dying in an arcane torrent silence or a warstomp stun due to a mongo melee whaling on me.

[Wuuzikli]

Eh, well, we've probably equally lost the same amount of PvE players from 'World First' and Mythic raiding Guilds. Don't necessarily think it's a specific thing, but rather a whole slew of reasons to why people stop playing.

Or they play different servers or Destiny 2.

[Argorwal]

Arena lacks scapegoats, and mercilessly informs you how much worse you are at the game then you'd like to admit.

Once I accepted that I'm just not that good it became a lot more fun to me. Too bad it took 2 expansions for that to happen.

Of course class balance is always a solid scapegoat.

[Steelangel]

Legion PvP favors classes that are mobile, have lots of instant abilities and hit like trucks. If you have to sit still for a second or so to cast something, you're leaving yourself open to being trampled, and that spell that took 1.2 seconds to cast is a wet noodle compared to say Strike of the Windlord that (used to) one-shot mages and Priests, or a demon hunter that pops up out of literally nowhere and eats you for lunch.

I used to PvP with a rated team back in Cata and MoP, and that was fun. I never got above 1600 rating, but that was something. Nowadays rated groups demand super high ratings, and battlegrounds are a lost cause, made worse by the fact that you don't really get anything for it. It's actually faster to prestige from world quests than ever set foot in a BG.

I would be more interested in PvP in general if it forced everyone to use the standard UI without any addons. As a healer, I'm usually facing an opposing team of Horde goons that immediately pick me out of the crowd on their little click app and CCs me into giving up completely. Unless I can freecast, I'm pretty useless to my team, and I can't cast anything if I'm surrounded by 3 tauren fury warriors who can global my poor priest before I can think "cast penance", and I can't shake them or hide from them or expect my team to help me, making my gameplay more "wait 30 seconds at the spirit healer" than "heal my team". It's probably better in rated, but healing random BGs is a complete waste of time.

[endersblade]

I would, but the tirade I would go on would get me infracted. So I'll keep it simple: Too unbalanced, and the average mental capability of the people who DO like PvP is around age 5.

[Deleted]

Simply put, the PvP in WoW is very badly designed. The maps are very boring, and remind me of FPS games more than strategy games, unlike what WoW's predecessor WC3 was. And they have so few objectives and in most maps those objectives because the developers assume the players are so dumb they can't think of strategy. The most succesful BG to this day was AV. It had objectives that directly related to your win condition and objectives that indirectly helped with your win condition, making it extremenely fun as a map to play from casual PoV. Furthermore, it had a LOT of objectives, which ensured there was always a certain amount of strategy involved, and you weren't forced to do the same objective all the time, unlike something like AB: Im Horde, so I guess I'll take farm first(because it's always the correct option). Etc.

But doing those objectives was also FUN, which is actually a rather important aspect of not just an MMO but any game. Seeing Lok'holar on your side was a huge morale boost, not just from pure gameplay or power perspective but from lore/immersion/fun perspective.

It's also an MMORPG, so the lack of lore and rewards in most maps makes those maps feel incredibly dull. Like how come a moba like DotA 2 has a better visual representation of the scale of war than an actual MMORPG in WoW? It's like most maps exist just ad hoc to "faciliate" PvP combat, not being fun maps themselves, that feel epic and part of the h/a conflict, making them extremenely similar to arenas. Currently there's not much of a difference between arenas and most BG's, and I argue that most BG's can potentially be even more boring than arenas which I don't even play because at least arenas probably have non-stop PvP combat, even though arenas are still horrible for an MMORPG.

And don't even get me started with CTF BG's, those are the worst. I think for an MMO people want a heroic and epic battlefield, with FUN things to do(like AV) one where people don't run in between each faction's base with the enemy faction's flag in tow /yawn

[Deleted]

Simply put, the PvP in WoW is very badly designed. The maps are very boring, and remind me of FPS games more than strategy games, unlike what WoW's predecessor WC3 was. And they have so few objectives and in most maps those objectives because the developers assume the players are so dumb they can't think of strategy. The most succesful BG to this day was AV. It had objectives that directly related to your win condition and objectives that indirectly helped with your win condition, making it extremenely fun as a map to play from casual PoV. Furthermore, it had a LOT of objectives, which ensured there was always a certain amount of strategy involved, and you weren't forced to do the same objective all the time, unlike something like AB: Im Horde, so I guess I'll take farm first(because it's always the correct option). Etc.

But doing those objectives was also FUN, which is actually a rather important aspect of not just an MMO but any game. Seeing Lok'holar on your side was a huge morale boost, not just from pure gameplay or power perspective but from lore/immersion/fun perspective.

It's also an MMORPG, so the lack of lore and rewards in most maps makes those maps feel incredibly dull. Like how come a moba like DotA 2 has a better visual representation of the scale of war than an actual battleground in an MMORPG?? Most maps exist just ad hoc to "faciliate" PvP combat, not being fun maps themselves, that feel epic and part of the h/a conflict, making them extremenely similar to arenas.

And don't even get me started with CTF BG's, those are the worst. I think for an MMO people want a heroic and epic battlefield, with FUN things to do(like AV) one where people don't run in between each faction's base with the enemy faction's flag in tow all the time /yawn

[Doffen]

Arena lacks scapegoats, and mercilessly informs you how much worse you are at the game then you'd like to admit.

Once I accepted that I'm just not that good it became a lot more fun to me. Too bad it took 2 expansions for that to happen.

Of course class balance is always a solid scapegoat.

Being good in pve is different than being good in pvp. Its 2 different things But I guess you know that, I feel the same way as you. Solid in pve but I suck ass in pvp. And I've seen the same vica versa. I think for one that pvp players are better overall with their class with all the extra tools they need, but on the other hand, good pve-players are better at spesifics in their spec.

But thats how I feel

[Phasma]

I think it's just too "flavor of the month" for most people. There are usually a handful of classes that are good every patch and the rest are just flat out bad. People that play these "flavor of the month" classes will try to tell you that you are bad, but don't listen to them. They are the type of toxic players that make WoW PvP even worse.

[Deleted]

When i am a arcane mage and warlocks, shadow priests and balance druids can just stand there nuke me outdmg me something is wrong.

All of them have cc, interrupt abilities these days as good as mages but they also now do the same dmg as me.
The only problem is blizzard never gave me there healing or defense abilities.

And that is why i ignore pvp they buffed classes but never gave stuff to classes that only had one power and for arcane mages it was you could outburst any other class with dmg but currenly this is not the case anymore.

[Maquegyver]

Well...

Matchmaking is horseshit,
Battleground balance is horseshit,
Class balance is horseshit,
Spec balance is horseshit,
Race balance is horseshit,
No sense of progression in an MMO is horseshit,
Plenty of other things to do that are 1) Less frustrating 2) More rewarding
Endless list of games that do PvP better whether it is a shooter, moba, or otherwise

Honestly in a game that has always heavily leaned towards PvE; Blizzard won't ever make PvP relevent without major incentives for PvE first players to participate. One incentive used to be PvE gear being relevent in PvP. Another was PvE like alterac valley. Without these incentives and really no PvE incentives to speak of there is minimal interest from the large PvE portion of the playerbase.

I only do PvP on a whim now when I have literally nothing else to do. I am usually swiftly reminded why I hate it and quickly log out after to play anything else. In Vanilla I PvP'd almost daily and for fairly long periods of time. The feel of PvP is so vastly different now I just can't enjoy it.

[Wries]

In legion the character feels so different when going into PvP so it feels sort of strange and ruined. Used to play some PvP (never at any high bracket) before but the new system made me say goodbye.

Like others said, there are sooo many PvP focused games around that does it better. WoW's PvE endgame is strong so I'm not missing PvP that much.

[Deleted]

I used to play the game mostly for PVP in the past. I adored classic world pvp (Tarren's Mill) and absolutely loved the hell out of Alterac Valley. To a lesser, but still pretty high extent, I really enjoyed the other BGs too.

I've always hated arena, as the format just isn't true RPG PVP in my eyes, and zero enjoyable to me. Also really didn't like rated BGs, either - tried a few times with random groups, but the level of toxicity and general saltiness made them thoroughly unenjoyable.

Today, world PVP is in its worst state ever (but has been quite dead for a long time anyway). Classic AV obviously hasn't been around for ages.

So that pretty much leaves random BGs for me. And while I have played and enjoyed these for a really long time, I can't really get into them anymore these days. Lots of issues (terrible balance, plus honor ranks don't feel as motivating to me as a gear hunt) - most of all though .. the most recent battleground they released is now 5 years old. There was absolutely no new BG content for FIVE years. That was just insanity. Not very surprisingly, these eventually started to get really boring to me as well.

(I've unsubbed several months ago, so not sure how it's looking right now .. have heard something about new skins such as a winter AB, but guess still no really new map or gamemode)

[Deleted]

Well, the core problem for me is that most PvP players, who are still active, have a million years worth of experience more than me. So regardless of what I do, I end up being swiftly reminded that I need to go back to PvE. Because in a BG or arena I am the guy wearing the 'Free Lunch' sign around his neck. There no longer seem to be any way of starting from near zero PvP experience and then slowly working your way up. You just get crushed repeatedly without actually getting to do anything.

I used to do a lot of AV back in BC, where I would go in wearing full BT PvE gear with tons of mana regen and just spam heal our raid, energizer bunny style. Really felt like I made a significant difference a lot of the time, so that was fun. Of course without PvP gear I'd quickly die when singled out, but the fun times easily made up for than.

Nowadays... nothing like BC (or even classic) AV anymore. Played Ashran a bit in WoD, but have hardly played any PvP in Legion. May try to sneak a bit of WQ 'PvP' in at some point.

[Kelthos]

I just don't enjoy pvp. Constantly getting CC'd and not being able to do anything about it is annoying, as well as the fact jump spamming like a lunatic makes you harder to hit is equally annoying.