The wicked witch is gone! Rejoice pvp scene

[RobertoCarlos]

Sure thing, keep on thinking like that. Eventually, you will have someone much like me, who will come to person like you and see how clueless you are about the work that you are supposed to do at least decent and you are doing it under average because hey - it's important who you know, not what you know.

Kim Jong uh?

[Divinexve]

I actually love the state pvp is in right now, the only thing I would like back is

1. Real pvp gear, not the bullshit raid gear that pvp gives
2. Pvp set bonuses on the gear that works outside of pvp
3. raid tiers working in bgs
4. trinkets working in bgs

[Sencha]

pvp won't be drastically changed until next expansion.

[RelaZ]

2017 and people still think the game will fix itself because the lead PvP dev has changed.

Yeah, good luck with that. One developer has no power over the general direction of the game.

Oh, I think you're wrong to some extent. One developer certainly has a lot of sway over his area (PvP, Instances etc) - of course they're not everything but they're certainly the top dogs in that area. However, in the case of PvP its success hinges on more than just the PvP design (arena, bgs etc), instead it mostly hinges on class design which the PvP department has little sway over (although PvP talents could have fixed it but I'm sure he was under strict orders from the other designers not to separate PvP and PvE too much with the talents, and I don't think he fought to try to change that order).

But even so the following decisions I'm sure he was the inventor of, in charge of or the designer for:

- 27K cp allow for buying cp gear with honor (late MoP)
- Catchup system (1k cp catch up per week of season, late MoP)
- Did a lot of good class design fixes going from S13 to -> S14/S15 (whatever your opinion on MoP is, S14/S15 was objectively better than S12/S13 and that in part due to the changes made).
- WoD Gearing system (scaling ilvl in PvP)
- Ashran (widely despised among the PvP community, ie not the PvErs on MMO who never PvP but randomly saw the thread and decided to post that they "loved Ashran, and even did it twice")
- Some BiS gear being RNG only (from Ashran in WoD)
- A few/lot of talents in WoD (mainly the PvP tailored ones)
- Undoing of WoD Gearing system in favour of only random drops where mythic raiders have better PvP gear than 1900 rated players.
- Allowing unlimited traits in Arena (Legion S1)
- Capping traits in arena
- Uncapping traits in arena (???)
- Legion Prestiges & PvP talent system (resetting each prestige)
- Legion PvP Talents (to some extent, with examples such as Greater Pyroblast, Relentless & Adaptation, Shimmer, Burning Determination, Enraged Maim etc)
- Legion balancing failure (too fast / too slow, overnerfing and buffing)
- Breaking Armory further (Or more like, he did not push for fixing/maintaining a good ladder on armory with an easy to use title calculator)
- Failure to address MoP & WoD hacking/botting/piloting more resolutely early on.
- Several seasons of completely whacked up title distributions.
- Several "rude" twitter-posts (Although provoked one has to have higher expectations from a dev)
- Ineptitude to actually say anything meaningful about PvP class design (not balance, I mean actual design) and not just fluff-fluff in over 2 years of Q&A's (although this was probably PR's doing to some extent).
- Pruning. Letting WoD PvP go live the way it did after six months or so of intense campaigning from PvPers saying that it was not what we wanted. (Also same for Legion)
- Stat Templates (with no clarity whatsoever anywhere on what stats specs actually have at this point)
- Not using stat templates in non-instanced PvP (wPvP & duels)
- All the new Arena Maps since Tiger's Peak.

And probably a whole lot more that I'm forgetting about right now.

So basically he did some good stuff early on (27k CP -> buy gear for honor, CP catchup, S13 -> S14/15 class design changes, WoD gearing system) but also let us down almost completely when it came to gameplay (Ashran, a completely failed new Arena and WoD & Legion class design) and later on with the PvP systems too (No catchup, trait stacking almost infinitely in PvP, Prestige resetting pvp talents, RNG-gearing and wPvP chaos design in Legion).

All in all I'm happy Holinka is gone (I hope), but only because it gives us the chance to replace him with an experienced non-biased intelligent ex-pro PvPer who's liked in the PvP community (like Azael or Hoodrych) - and then ACTUALLY LET HIM FIX PVP (none of this "well you cant make PvP too different from PvE" etc).

If we want to fix PvP for this next expansion we seriously need to rally behind a candidate we want as the next PvP lead dev, and we need to do so soon.

[Tart]

Guys seriously WoW is past its best, its as good as its going to get.

[Krusza]

Oh, I think you're wrong to some extent. One developer certainly has a lot of sway over his area (PvP, Instances etc) - of course they're not everything but they're certainly the top dogs in that area. However, in the case of PvP its success hinges on more than just the PvP design (arena, bgs etc), instead it mostly hinges on class design which the PvP department has little sway over (although PvP talents could have fixed it but I'm sure he was under strict orders from the other designers not to separate PvP and PvE too much with the talents, and I don't think he fought to try to change that order).

But even so the following decisions I'm sure he was the inventor of, in charge of or the designer for:

- 27K cp allow for buying cp gear with honor (late MoP)
- Catchup system (1k cp catch up per week of season, late MoP)
- Did a lot of good class design fixes going from S13 to -> S14/S15 (whatever your opinion on MoP is, S14/S15 was objectively better than S12/S13 and that in part due to the changes made).
- WoD Gearing system (scaling ilvl in PvP)
- Ashran (widely despised among the PvP community, ie not the PvErs on MMO who never PvP but randomly saw the thread and decided to post that they "loved Ashran, and even did it twice")
- Some BiS gear being RNG only (from Ashran in WoD)
- A few/lot of talents in WoD (mainly the PvP tailored ones)
- Undoing of WoD Gearing system in favour of only random drops where mythic raiders have better PvP gear than 1900 rated players.
- Allowing unlimited traits in Arena (Legion S1)
- Capping traits in arena
- Uncapping traits in arena (???)
- Legion Prestiges & PvP talent system (resetting each prestige)
- Legion PvP Talents (to some extent, with examples such as Greater Pyroblast, Relentless & Adaptation, Shimmer, Burning Determination, Enraged Maim etc)
- Legion balancing failure (too fast / too slow, overnerfing and buffing)
- Breaking Armory further (Or more like, he did not push for fixing/maintaining a good ladder on armory with an easy to use title calculator)
- Failure to address MoP & WoD hacking/botting/piloting more resolutely early on.
- Several seasons of completely whacked up title distributions.
- Several "rude" twitter-posts (Although provoked one has to have higher expectations from a dev)
- Ineptitude to actually say anything meaningful about PvP class design (not balance, I mean actual design) and not just fluff-fluff in over 2 years of Q&A's (although this was probably PR's doing to some extent).
- Pruning. Letting WoD PvP go live the way it did after six months or so of intense campaigning from PvPers saying that it was not what we wanted. (Also same for Legion)
- Stat Templates (with no clarity whatsoever anywhere on what stats specs actually have at this point)
- Not using stat templates in non-instanced PvP (wPvP & duels)
- All the new Arena Maps since Tiger's Peak.

And probably a whole lot more that I'm forgetting about right now.

So basically he did some good stuff early on (27k CP -> buy gear for honor, CP catchup, S13 -> S14/15 class design changes, WoD gearing system) but also let us down almost completely when it came to gameplay (Ashran, a completely failed new Arena and WoD & Legion class design) and later on with the PvP systems too (No catchup, trait stacking almost infinitely in PvP, Prestige resetting pvp talents, RNG-gearing and wPvP chaos design in Legion).

All in all I'm happy Holinka is gone (I hope), but only because it gives us the chance to replace him with an experienced non-biased intelligent ex-pro PvPer who's liked in the PvP community (like Azael or Hoodrych) - and then ACTUALLY LET HIM FIX PVP (none of this "well you cant make PvP too different from PvE" etc).

If we want to fix PvP for this next expansion we seriously need to rally behind a candidate we want as the next PvP lead dev, and we need to do so soon.

When I brought multiple issues up to him on Twitter DMs, he didn't say it outright, but he heavily implied that even though he wanted to fix things it wasn't that simple. If something affected another part of the game, his hands were completely tied in the issue.

[Souflikar]

Serious question, has pvp ever been great in WOW? Year after year players seem more unhappy with pvp.

[Fkiolaris]

While I don't really rate Holinka, for my personal taste I find that the main problems I have in pvp are universal for the whole game and as such not his direct responsibility. These are:
a) Completely shite design of classes
b) Completely shite design of reward systems.
The above 2 are true across the whole game, and as such IMO the 2 main culprits are Ion and Celestalon, while these are the main reasons that I have dropped WoW in Legion. Yes, Holinka did give us Ashran that was a mess in many different ways, but I do credit him with the WoD pvp gearing system and gear functionality that was in many ways as good as we will get in this game. Either way, I would not expect any dramatic changes in this expansion.

Edit: to answer the above about pvp being great in WoW: it has never been "great" in terms of balance, but it has been much more enjoyable than what it is now. Both in terms of gameplay and reward systems. With both being gone now, pvp in Legion is utter shite

[RobertoCarlos]

Nobody gives a shit about pvp in a dying game like WoW.....

Sorry its not LoL or CS:GO numbers but a lot of people still play WoW, so save the hyperbole bs for somewhere else

[Nfinitii]

Nobody gives a shit about pvp in a dying game like WoW.....

Yet here u r. Pretending not to care.

[Mafic]

I dont agree, Ashran sucked because it was 40v40 - which PvPers didn't want (most PvPers blacklisted IoC & AV already). The people claiming they want/wanted it are/were PvErs with rose-tinted goggles. That or just a very small minority of PvPers I'm willing to bet. Nothing could've saved Ashran bar removing all the PvE and making it 15v15.

People blacklist AV/IoC because they are PVE races like Ashran. Old AV was awesome. People like the idea of 40v40 PVP. This is why Wintergrasp was so popular on balanced realms.

[kurtpal]

PVP died for me personally when they introduced stat templates based on iLVL.
Sure it was to help people just getting into it, or making it more skill based instead of gear based, but I don't care for that shit, Iv never been skilled but I used to love casual BGing/arena with my brother and mates, we had an absolute blast.
Also no, it wasn't just because I could auto-att the green wearers from 100-0 in a stunlock, although that was fun. It was because I could gear anyway I wanted to, I had a blood DK that i stacked so much fucking stamina on it was awesome to run flags with. I had a hunter for fun I stacked arcane damage on him, it was so shit, but the arcane crits I got were hilarious. My main(rogue) I had 2 different sets that I would swap between depending on what I was about to open on. Its the shit like this that I miss, sure keep it out of the comps, but why nerf casual BGing so bad? it used to be where i spent 95% of my time.
I have since quit and havent played legion after the first 2 weeks.

[Caolela]

Huelunkie was just a symptom of a larger problem at Blizz. Obviously he had to play along with the main directives from his bosses (who in turn take orders from the profiteering bean-counters) or he'd have been out the door.

OTOH, the things he was directly or mostly responsible for he often didn't do a good job with from the players' perspective. He could have done more to push back against a lousy design or particular decision. I've seen reports of him watching high-lvl RBGers and arena matches with blatant hacks/cheats in plain view, yet he was yukking it up with them. I saw him as the typical 'company man' playing the 'go along to get along' asskisser for his own benefit.

You can be sure that's just what Blizz wanted in that position, not a revolutionary or independent thinker.

His arrogant and condescending/snide attitude was the other thing that didn't help him. He mostly came off as thinking he was the greatest thing since air, and that gets old real quick.

[Aleax]

Remember when Ghostcrawler quit and everyone rejoiced, then we got Celes"Bombardment Weaving"talon and WoD?

Stop blaming the face for all the problems.

It actually made me sad when GC left, it was like WoW actually is not really the game everyone want to play or design.
No I didn't even mained frost mages back then, and I even play the class which was stomped by Frost mages, paladins. xD...

Holinka well, he was part of a bunch of designers, and the trend was to simplify WoW, he is not the sole guy responsible for this. Respect the devs for once!

[shoegazing]

Holinka isn't the one who pruned the classes in fact he even fought for PvP talents to counteract the pruning done by the PvE devs...

- - - Updated - - -

Huelunkie was just a symptom of a larger problem at Blizz. Obviously he had to play along with the main directives from his bosses (who in turn take orders from the profiteering bean-counters) or he'd have been out the door.

OTOH, the things he was directly or mostly responsible for he often didn't do a good job with from the players' perspective. He could have done more to push back against a lousy design or particular decision. I've seen reports of him watching high-lvl RBGers and arena matches with blatant hacks/cheats in plain view, yet he was yukking it up with them. I saw him as the typical 'company man' playing the 'go along to get along' asskisser for his own benefit.

You can be sure that's just what Blizz wanted in that position, not a revolutionary or independent thinker.

His arrogant and condescending/snide attitude was the other thing that didn't help him. He mostly came off as thinking he was the greatest thing since air, and that gets old real quick.

this is one of the more fair assessments in this thread

[Deleted]

I doubt pvp will get any better given how little the WoW team cares about pvp but hey Holinka gone is nothing but good news

[RelaZ]

When I brought multiple issues up to him on Twitter DMs, he didn't say it outright, but he heavily implied that even though he wanted to fix things it wasn't that simple. If something affected another part of the game, his hands were completely tied in the issue.

Do you want to share those DM's? I'm curious to see his responses.

- - - Updated - - -

People blacklist AV/IoC because they are PVE races like Ashran. Old AV was awesome. People like the idea of 40v40 PVP. This is why Wintergrasp was so popular on balanced realms.

I disagree, WG was popular because it gave rewards (access to a raid + special PvP gear). It was actually pretty hated upon at the time (vehicles etc). And I also disagree about old AV being awesome - if we were to bring it back it'd be a wasteland after the first few weeks of nostalgia.

[Krusza]

Do you want to share those DM's? I'm curious to see his responses.

I'd rather not post many screenies in case it could cause some blowback as he's still working for Blizzard, but it seemed that way from what he said.

I'll post a more subtle example here, when I brought up the issue of how broken world PvP damage levels are he said this on the day he quit: http://i.imgur.com/SEKPX9S.png

The issue is incredibly simple and they had a fix in the works. Base resilience and battle fatigue, problem solved. Then they reverted the change with pretty much no clarification. It's clearly implied here he couldn't fix it even though he wanted to because of other devs teams.

My guess is you'd of seen the same thing with ANY other issue if it affected any part of PvE. He's often blamed for "pruning" / general dumbing down of the game, but I doubt he even had any power in the issue.

[Eapoe]

PVP has had issues since before Holinka and will have them after. I'm just curious, how exactly did he ruin it? Is it because it changed from FotM classes based on what comps could CC the most while bursting a target to FotM comps that just burst a target harder?
Seriously, what got ruined over the years, specifically? All I hear is "PVP is ruined" and "Holinka killed PVP!" How though?
I think everyone can agree that Wintergrasp was the best wPvP zone done in WoW, with Ashran being the worst, but does anyone even remember the copy of Wintergrasp? The Broken Isles or Lost Isles, whatever it was called? That was a pale copy of Wintergrasp that everyone cried was terrible design and that was before Holinka. At least Ashran tried being something new, a strict world instanced PVP area that was supposed to focus on big PVP battles. It's a shame it just became a place to win trade and focus side objectives over the main objective. Possibly could have become grander if the side points provided buffs or called minibosses (much like the old AV) and had timers for when these battles started while just being an open world PVP area in the downtimes.
As it is, PVP really hasn't changed much, just that instead of who can cc stun-lock the best it's more of a zergfest.

[Arrashi]

PVP has had issues since before Holinka and will have them after. I'm just curious, how exactly did he ruin it? Is it because it changed from FotM classes based on what comps could CC the most while bursting a target to FotM comps that just burst a target harder?
Seriously, what got ruined over the years, specifically? All I hear is "PVP is ruined" and "Holinka killed PVP!" How though?
I think everyone can agree that Wintergrasp was the best wPvP zone done in WoW, with Ashran being the worst, but does anyone even remember the copy of Wintergrasp? The Broken Isles or Lost Isles, whatever it was called? That was a pale copy of Wintergrasp that everyone cried was terrible design and that was before Holinka. At least Ashran tried being something new, a strict world instanced PVP area that was supposed to focus on big PVP battles. It's a shame it just became a place to win trade and focus side objectives over the main objective. Possibly could have become grander if the side points provided buffs or called minibosses (much like the old AV) and had timers for when these battles started while just being an open world PVP area in the downtimes.
As it is, PVP really hasn't changed much, just that instead of who can cc stun-lock the best it's more of a zergfest.

If you are talking about tol barad, then the issue was that it wasn't copy of wintergrasp but "running in circles" simulator.