What I would do if I were the lead PvP developer:

[Deleted]

A list. It's been a while, but let the roasting begin. BTW I'm not a PVP centric player so this'll be even more flame-worthy.





IMO instanced PvP killed world PvP. Giving players this sort of option basically means players have a choice, and they'll choose the easier one. You can't queue for world PvP, after all.



Lifting CRZ/Sharding and literally isolating realms turns the outdoor experience into one of a few things - a dead realm, a Horde realm or an Alliance realm. I can make a compelling argument that neither option is fun.


So take out the reasons to do Arenas?


There were reasons we moved away from the classic honor system. I suggest you make your case against that before trying to reintroduce it.


If you're going to make suggestions like this, flesh it out otherwise it's hard for anyone to take seriously.


How do you address the reasons stat templates were introduced in the first place? There's a pretty good argument against having to go through the gauntlet of getting stomped just to reach a remotely respectable level of gear.
And to get reforging to come back, you'd also have to bring back actual junk stats like hit/expertise, otherwise that's an asinine request.


So in other words, PvP only skills. You'll basically be fighting with your fellow PvE design team for these skills and abilities.


IMO a system of randomized quests dotted throughout the game world with randomized rewards would also be a thing to get players out into the world again.



You want TWO Ashrans?



Can't you do this now?



I agree with this from the perspective of furthering the player economy. But you're kidding yourself if you didn't just stat stack or do what a website told you to do.



And yet you want two, haha



This has a Trumpian sort of feel to it, where the primary objective is to tear down progress and reiteration, then try to bring back the good old days even though the rest of the world has moved on.

I don't believe you're here for a discussion, it seems like to me that you're here to have a fight, like most people here.

Alright:

1. Instanced PvP didn't kill World PvP, instanced PvP was created for people who didn't want to lag like crazy when playing against a large amount of players, try again.

2. CRZ is what influenced the community into believing it doesn't need to communicate to play properly, and now it doesn't, ever. The reason for this is because when CRZ came about, a lot of players had already quit during the period between WOTLK and the start of MOP so the players who filled up the gap here were mostly new players. These new players have never experienced the old world for themselves before so they have no idea what sort of community people had before, so when they see this CRZ feature around instead they'll just assume that this is how people have played this game all this time. More old players quit and got replaced with new players, meaning the core values of WoW players started to diminish until we've come to a point where the game desperately relies on CRZ due to a plethora of bad decisions made by developers in order to create the illusion that the world is alive and well when it very well isn't.

CRZ is something that contributed to the decline of WoW indirectly by influencing an attitude upon players called the "single player" attitude where they will demand single player like features making it so that it doesn't require them to find groups or to socialize with people in order to get ahead or to gear up normally anymore. The changes the developers made to have this happen were slow and gradual, going along with the amount of new players who joined versus the amount of old players leaving.

So yes, CRZ is a bad thing and always has been, a band aid solution.


3. Since the majority of players won't give up arenas willingly, it is in my opinion to make them worthless so as to make them play other aspects of the game like they should've from the start.

4. There is one reason we moved away from the classic honor system and that is called "Esports" and is the reason why arenas were created in TBC with resilience being added into it. Try again.

5. I typed this off the top of my head, I wanted a discussion about it and was hoping people here could chip in on the design of these BGs. I am not an actual lead PvP developer, so slow down there with all the realism, remember this is just a hypothetical discussion.

6. Everybody gets free max level gear when they hit max level in PvP, they will be similar to something called "tournament gear" which will not be usable in PvE, it's an idea that has worked for a long time on several private servers in the past decade and people liked it, it made things simple to jump right into instead of having to spend time getting owned in BGs or arenas just to get a piece of gear. In this case, you can now be equal geared to everybody else and the skill will show through how you play against others.

The reason the stat templates were introduced was because they wanted players to be equal in PvP, that's all.

Bringing back all the stats will help to create a sense of a MMORPG instead of a basic MOBA.

I will understand the overwhelming hatred for this idea but it's true.

7. Again, hypothetical discussion but if we're gonna go for total realism here then I would say that if PvE players feel so strongly about wanting these abilities then there is absolutely nothing stopping them from participating in PvP. But again, it's a hypothetical discussion so there's no actual reason to be talking about fighting other developers here, we're discussing the idea alone and how players might receive it and if it would actually help to revitalize the game.

8. That idea would be a good idea if it meant those quests required players to attack certain enemy positions/towns/cities and in order to do that, they need to create a group to complete those quests. Then that'd be okay in my book, because it means players are socializing in order to PvP and aren't treating this game like a single player game.

9. These WPvP islands have no clear objective in sight, it will be a free for all deathmatch on a large scale until you decide to join a group of 2 other players and you will constantly slay enemy players in order to progress your own rank. There is no RNG bonus at the end, there is no PvE boss to kill, there are no places to capture, there is simply only pure WPvP. Gank squads will be difficult to organize due to the fact that there is a 3 man limitation, meaning they could end up harming their own friends instead of helping.

10. I'm not sure what you're asking by your question "Can't you do this now?"

11. Gems/enchants/glyphs were often read up in guides by noobs and new players, experienced players knew how to adjust their stats to fit their gameplay. There is a clear difference.

12. I've already made my point that these WPvP islands have nothing to do with Ashran and isn't even in the same realm of similarities, one had objectives, a PvE boss, RNG loot and PvE mobs to kill and the other is pure PvP slaying in a large open area with teams of 3s, so no 40v40 clusterfuck in the middle trying to control crossroads sort of thing.

13. I don't care about politics and the progress was already torn down in the name of catering to whiny players who didn't want to play the game and wanted the game to be crafted around them instead. This was a very long process and we've come to an expansion like Legion because of it.

The world has moved on because the world has been replaced with new players who've never touched any of the old world before.

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First of all, as others have already mentioned, good thing you're not a developer.

Secondly, world PvP in 2017, lul. Doing anything to promote/balance world PvP is a waste of time/money/effort. Majority of PvP realms are one-sided, people rarely PvP in the world unless they know they can roflstomp the opponent or they can get away w/ harassing/griefing, e.g., following someone and sapping him from time to time just for your own fun, sadly, these days it's easy to get 72hr suspension for it T_T

In every region there's prob only 1 realm where people roll to actually participate in wPvP, TBQH, I'm only aware of Emerald Dream US.

I see you're very passionate about arenas

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Good thing you aren't a PvP developer because you would effectively kill it off entirely with your changes.

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Never going to happen.

"your changes" as in "taking away rewards from arenas"?

Because that seems to have produced a negative reaction from most of you here, I believe it's time to move on from arenas, WoW was never meant to be an Esport because the developers at the time of creating World of Warcraft never had it in mind or designed it that way, they never knew that later on that arenas would be a thing, they never knew resilience would be a thing otherwise they would've designed the game that way from the get go.

You seem to say these things with absolute conviction and don't seem to be open for discussion here, so what I'm thinking is that you figured you'd post your opinion here and that it would be absolute and you would then leave.

That is not what this thread is for, start contributing to the topic please.

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Lead PVP developer does not have the authority to do this. More than PVP is affected



Again, Lead PVP developer does not have the authority to do this...it affects more than PVP



You just killed Arenas



Vanilla Honour system was bad.



Ok sure...at least this is in the purview of the PVP design...though you'd have to get higher ups to approve the resources you're going to be pulling from other areas



Resilience could possibly be restored. Gemming and Reforging are above the Lead PVP designers paygrade.



Again, You can't do this as the lead PVP designer. Stay in your lane.

Hypothetical discussion.

Also killing off arenas was an intended decision by the Blizzard design team, please make a thread giving us feedback letting us know how you feel about this and we will be sure to get back to you soon!

Vanilla Honor System was enjoyed by many, Nostalrius/Kronos/Elysium private servers are a testament to that fact, and several other private servers in the Vanilla era.

But everything else you've written aren't relevant as this is a hypothetical discussion.

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Your first three points is why you aren't one, I think.

The reasons you've stated for why this is are overwhelming!

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Could you dismount from you high flying unicorns and elaborate for us, mortals, what stand behind such implacable truths?


I would at least give the OP credit for trying to bring new ideas in the game instead of only dumb: nothing is possible ... let's leave blizz all the credits for creativity and we play whatever crap will serve us with.

The same exact things happened when TBC was coming out, Vanilla players were absolutely against the changes, they said it would "kill off WoW" like the people in here are saying right now, they said the same exact things and yet TBC happened anyway and everybody moved on.

They were all for changes if it meant moving on from Vanilla gameplay but now all over a sudden, people are against change if it means they have to move on from arenas? What kind of distorted mindset is that?

Sounds like to me that these people have trouble letting go of arenas.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

1. Delete PvP. World of Warcraft is a pve focused game and although many people have enjoyed pvp it has been a source of imbalance and frustration for those trying to PvP only occassionally.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Hypothetical discussion.

Also killing off arenas was an intended decision by the Blizzard design team, please make a thread giving us feedback letting us know how you feel about this and we will be sure to get back to you soon!

Vanilla Honor System was enjoyed by many, Nostalrius/Kronos/Elysium private servers are a testament to that fact, and several other private servers in the Vanilla era.

But everything else you've written aren't relevant as this is a hypothetical discussion.

Hypothetical discussion or not...the Lead PVP designer does not make these decisions. You would need to be in a much higher position to make the kind of changes you want. Flying, reforging, gemming, and the overall talent system are not handled by the PVP team. You've hypothetically put yourself into a position where you wouldn't be able to accomplish your hypotheticals because your ideas would keep getting shot down by your hypothetical superiors.

If your intent is to kill off arenas....just kill them off....don't weasel around with removing the rewards but leaving the arena itself in place.

Those private servers are a mere fraction of the amount of subscribers Legion currently has. There are more people that hated the constant grind that was Vanilla's Honour system than those that wish to see it return.

[Mirishka]

What do you think guys?

I'm sure a lot of thought and consideration went into that post. Sadly, that does not change the fact that the vast majority of those ideas are terrible and thankfully aren't happening.

[Razorice]

So, if you were a lead PVP developer you would screw with PVE scene? No thanks.

[whywhatwhowhenhow]

I'd delete PvP altogether so PvE players can have nice things (warlocks cast and move etc.). Then I'd get sacked, but I'd have lots of time to play a good version of WoW all day.

[Cæli]

love your ideas of arena and pvp in general

you're hired

except for deleting content (ashran) what the hell never remove content that has been worked on, fired

[Otimus]

LMFAO WHAT, that's the stupidest shit ever heard on this website, and that's saying a lot. This would, 100% destroy the game entirely, and would completely defeat the purpose of any end game content, except a niche group of pvper's and some casuals who jerk off to crafting gear and farming materials. Advocating removing instanced content is funny, because the people about the games "elitists" would get dominated even harder than they already do. Do you think top players would EVER invite lower players to out door raid bosses? lmfao no way. Ill tell you, as a player in a top US raiding guild, all i really care about is killing bosses, gear is just a means to an end, so to think people would include anyone is just laughable, it would never happen. The reason they got rid of non-instanced world bosses, like the ones in vanilla and TBC, is because literally only the top 25-40 players on each server ever got to kill it, instanced content is literally a casual friendly system, and without it, the "casual community" would have been driven off a long time ago. There is a good portion of the community that raids normal's and heroics, i think the % of players who completed normal was something like 40%, so when people say raids are for the niche mythic raiders (top 3-4%)is stupid. The reason mythic exists is because wouldn't exist without the hardcore players, the ones who play through the lulls in content, while all the farmers unsub after the first month or two, so get this stupid ass idea out of your head.

I think you read something into what I said that I didn't intend in so you could get all angry and rage-y.

For one, I know that'd be a stupid idea that wouldn't work in WoW, that's why I called it an artificial jolt, for two, I was just ranting against everything in the game being instanced as a point of design in a paid game being silly. I'm fully aware that changing that would break WoW. I was just complaining about it in general.


Anyways, my intention was that, for an MMO, the world sure as hell doesn't matter, and pretty much never has really mattered past launch, and that's just kind of sad that something that almost entirely relies on instancing costs a monthly fee.

Pretty much nothing you can do to fix it, either.

Seriously, in this massively multiplayer game, nothing you ever do is really all that massive. All the important stuff is in tiny groups sectioned off from the rest of the world. That's pretty silly.

[ls-]

I see you're very passionate about arenas

Actually no, I like BGs. I also think that PvP being balanced around 3v3 hurts BGs.

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Oh, just saw that you're playing on PS. Looks like I took the bait T_T

[Deleted]

pvp lead designer or no.. CRZ have to go.. it's entirely ruined the social aspect of wow

[Elim Garak]

Ah, world pvp, the reason why I cannot buy any timewalking rewards at the TI vendor?
Brilliant! Absolutely fun!

Please remove it.

[Toogoodman]

I think you read something into what I said that I didn't intend in so you could get all angry and rage-y.

For one, I know that'd be a stupid idea that wouldn't work in WoW, that's why I called it an artificial jolt, for two, I was just ranting against everything in the game being instanced as a point of design in a paid game being silly. I'm fully aware that changing that would break WoW. I was just complaining about it in general.


Anyways, my intention was that, for an MMO, the world sure as hell doesn't matter, and pretty much never has really mattered past launch, and that's just kind of sad that something that almost entirely relies on instancing costs a monthly fee.

Pretty much nothing you can do to fix it, either.

Seriously, in this massively multiplayer game, nothing you ever do is really all that massive. All the important stuff is in tiny groups sectioned off from the rest of the world. That's pretty silly.

No i totally agree that the world, ever since Cata, hasn't really mattered for anything, with the exception probably being MoP. I really dont like the broken isles, so hopefully in the next xpac they #1, make the world actually somewhere you want to be, and not a total chore. #2 make it somewhat relevant, add another Sha of Anger type out door boss instead of the 598475035823 shitty ones we have now.

[Orangetai420]

The developers themselves don't consider it just a minigame...

It doesn't matter what we call it. It is NOT the focus of WoW and NEVER will be.

Do you not agree that WoW is first and foremost a PvE game?

[Deleted]

It doesn't matter what we call it. It is NOT the focus of WoW and NEVER will be.

Do you not agree that WoW is first and foremost a PvE game?

WoW's lore literally began with PvP, the Horde vs the Alliance, lol.

To say that WoW's main focus is PvE is simply untrue, the main focus and the main aspect that brought in players was the whole faction wars thing that was going on, then the Burning Legion arrived and out came the PvE aspect afterwards.

I'm trying not to start a fight here but when people state things that are not true, then I have a problem with that.

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I'm sure a lot of thought and consideration went into that post. Sadly, that does not change the fact that the vast majority of those ideas are terrible and thankfully aren't happening.

Can you actually provide reasons and contribute to the discussion please, because otherwise this comment is just worthless.

Thank you.

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Hypothetical discussion or not...the Lead PVP designer does not make these decisions. You would need to be in a much higher position to make the kind of changes you want. Flying, reforging, gemming, and the overall talent system are not handled by the PVP team. You've hypothetically put yourself into a position where you wouldn't be able to accomplish your hypotheticals because your ideas would keep getting shot down by your hypothetical superiors.

If your intent is to kill off arenas....just kill them off....don't weasel around with removing the rewards but leaving the arena itself in place.

Those private servers are a mere fraction of the amount of subscribers Legion currently has. There are more people that hated the constant grind that was Vanilla's Honour system than those that wish to see it return.

I want to keep arenas around so players can still do arenas if they wish but they'll simply not have rewards, so the option is there but it's simply up to them to keep on doing them or not. Nobody really loses out on this as far as I can see.

And have you personally entered World of Warcraft and collected data to determine if that statement is true? Because I don't think you have yet.

I at least used some facts and evidence to show you that people do prefer the old WoW and there are thousands of threads made by different players every month about bringing back some element of old WoW. This goes to show that the older versions worked well and was well liked, hence the reason why I want to bring back old elements into the game while not making it Vanilla in a sense.

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So, if you were a lead PVP developer you would screw with PVE scene? No thanks.

I honestly couldn't care less about PvE and the majority of players who PvP do not care about PvE, there may be a small minority of you but that's not really relevant.

Please keep PvE out of this discussion.

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Ah, world pvp, the reason why I cannot buy any timewalking rewards at the TI vendor?
Brilliant! Absolutely fun!

Please remove it.

The discussion is purely about PvP, please refrain from discussing PvE topics in here, thank you.

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Actually no, I like BGs. I also think that PvP being balanced around 3v3 hurts BGs.

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Oh, just saw that you're playing on PS. Looks like I took the bait T_T

Playing on private servers does not diminish one's credibility any less than the next player, I'm not sure where this idea perpetrated from but I don't care.

Maybe you'd like to provide some insight of your own on how you would change PvP?

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I'd delete PvP altogether so PvE players can have nice things (warlocks cast and move etc.). Then I'd get sacked, but I'd have lots of time to play a good version of WoW all day.

This thread is not about PvE, I don't care about PvE, most PvPers don't care about PvE and quite frankly PvE is annoying, please keep it out of this discussion.

Thank you.

[Orangetai420]

WoW's lore literally began with PvP, the Horde vs the Alliance, lol.

To say that WoW's main focus is PvE is simply untrue, the main focus and the main aspect that brought in players was the whole faction wars thing that was going on, then the Burning Legion arrived and out came the PvE aspect afterwards.

The story involves a faction war, sure - but the gameplay main focus is PvE. You are dead wrong. I'm done here.

[Deleted]

The story involves a faction war, sure - but the gameplay main focus is PvE. You are dead wrong. I'm done here.

No it isn't the main focus of the game, I think this debate was over when I stated that WoW began with PvP anyway.

Goodbye, now.

[Magicpot]

WoW's lore literally began with PvP, the Horde vs the Alliance, lol.

To say that WoW's main focus is PvE is simply untrue, the main focus and the main aspect that brought in players was the whole faction wars thing that was going on, then the Burning Legion arrived and out came the PvE aspect afterwards.

I'm trying not to start a fight here but when people state things that are not true, then I have a problem with that.

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Can you actually provide reasons and contribute to the discussion please, because otherwise this comment is just worthless.

Thank you.

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I want to keep arenas around so players can still do arenas if they wish but they'll simply not have rewards, so the option is there but it's simply up to them to keep on doing them or not. Nobody really loses out on this as far as I can see.

And have you personally entered World of Warcraft and collected data to determine if that statement is true? Because I don't think you have yet.

I at least used some facts and evidence to show you that people do prefer the old WoW and there are thousands of threads made by different players every month about bringing back some element of old WoW. This goes to show that the older versions worked well and was well liked, hence the reason why I want to bring back old elements into the game while not making it Vanilla in a sense.

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I honestly couldn't care less about PvE and the majority of players who PvP do not care about PvE, there may be a small minority of you but that's not really relevant.

Please keep PvE out of this discussion.

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The discussion is purely about PvP, please refrain from discussing PvE topics in here, thank you.

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Playing on private servers does not diminish one's credibility any less than the next player, I'm not sure where this idea perpetrated from but I don't care.

Maybe you'd like to provide some insight of your own on how you would change PvP?

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This thread is not about PvE, I don't care about PvE, most PvPers don't care about PvE and quite frankly PvE is annoying, please keep it out of this discussion.

Thank you.

This game is purely about PvE and PvP was added as and still is a distraction for the real players (raiders) to pass the time between raids and get a different feel of the game.

If you think PvP is anywhere near as important as PvE then you're delusional and need to find a game that's not so PvE focused.

[Deleted]

Please mods can we have a button that automatically send all this Vanilla thread inside the incinerator..... err i mean mega-thread? For that i wuold pay 10 Euro a month i promise!

[SoulSoBreezy]

etc etc

1. I disagree. Instanced PvP is an in-your-face alternative to world pvp. People like spontaniety but IMO they like consistenty more, at least in the context of "Hey I want to PvP today." Today, people go where people are, and people are typically queued for a BG.

2. CRZ is a response to the swelling and contraction of players across hundreds of fractured realms. You didn't address the reality of a not CRZ/Sharded WoW. How do you tackle so many realms that are either dead or with huge faction imbalances?

3. What do you have against arenas?

4. From memory, I know I didn't like the old honor system because of what it took to hit HW/GM. The industry has seen that fewer and fewer modern players are interested in this model. Esports have nothing to do with it. That's what tournament realms are for. So yeah, try again.

5. This is the weakness of a wall of text that you want to hold as a discussion. There's too much to talk about. I suggest bringing up one component at a time. At the design table, you typically don't lump everything in and try to discuss all of it at once. You'll find yourself throwing away a lot of ideas that could have been cool if you spaced out its presentation.

6. So why not just suggest entirely separate PvP realms since people like it? The current system is as close as we've gotten, with instanced PvP being an entirely separate thing from the outside world.
Also, players aren't equal in instanced PvP. There are still skilled and unskilled players out there, organized and otherwise.

7. Part of the hypothetical is to not be blind about ability bloat. We've already experienced generations of WoW where there were too many useless buttons as well as the envy of "my talent is a pvp talent now, that sucks." If you want all abilities to be available regardless of the setting, doesn't that contradict your ideas of having a pvp talent like system like you mention elsewhere?

8. I think you missed my point. We have world quest objectives which do far more to get players out in the world. Also what's stopping players from using WQGF to easily queue for a pvp objective just like now? On top of that, if you want to get rid of CRZ/sharding, this "feature" would be very unfun with realm balance the way it is now.

9. With no reward, it's easy for me to choose the activity with a reward (instanced pvp) over the simple joy of killing. And again, realm balance wouldn't make this fun.

10. PvP talents exist now. That's what you're basically suggesting. And off the top of my head an addon can set up a profile to switch your buttons in a given situation.

11. Regardless of the difference, that's still the reality of things. Thank social media for that one.

12. At least Ashran had a reason to visit. If players were interested in nothing but killing, WPvP wouldn't be in the state it's in now. But because there are other alternatives to a WPvP zone that offer rewards, are you certain that players would abandon that for receiving little to nothing?

13. Excuse the analogy. But these ideas have way too many holes to be brought up in a public forum, but I acknowledge the intent here. I very strongly suggest that you take one idea at a time and refine it. Otherwise you'll get the same responses you're getting now. You can think that I'm trying to start a fight but I'm challenging your ideas in an effort that you'll come back with better ones, but atm just defending your ideas as if you're "right."

Consider the players, not just YOUR players. It's in your interest to keep as many of them on as possible.

[Schattenlied]

1. Delete PvP. World of Warcraft is a pve focused game and although many people have enjoyed pvp it has been a source of imbalance and frustration for those trying to PvP only occassionally.

I've got a better idea, instead of deleting something a lot of people would enjoy if it were balanced properly... Balance it properly... Hire people for a PvP team who are actually competent, and stop redesigning the classes every expansion so when something gets to a point of balance it isn't thrown into a woodchipper a few months later.

Many people considered WotLK the most balanced PvP we ever had... Do you know why that was? Because Blizzard were still iterating on the classes we started with in Vanilla, 6 years of balance work... Know what happened in Cata? Revamps happened, that's when they started redesigning classes from the ground up every expansion, and balance went to absolute shit, because all the work they do trying to balance classes is reset every expansion.

They need to either hire a PvP team that is a hell of a lot better at their jobs, and is capable of balancing the redesigns before beta is over, or they need to stop the redesigns so the team they have can actually have time to get it balanced... The latter decision would also improve PvE balance.