Is PVP in WoW really on the decline?

[lolpve]

pvp is not core gameplay for WoW, somewhat proper comparison would be "imagine if CS:GO fucked up box roulette in such a manner that 80% of the playerbase or so quit over the course of 4 years..."

Far more people were doing rated pvp than raiding for the majority of this game's history. Very ignorant comment. It's no coincidence that this game subscriber numbers have tanked in unison with falling rated pvp activity. Raiding will always be a niche in this game few people are interested in.

[RelaZ]

That makes sense then.

I also agree that in the race to make pvp "balanced" (for their crazy foal to make wow into esports) they kinda ruined all the fun of it.

This is very false.

The reason they did it because they love TBC and #class fantasy. Esports really has absolutely nothing to do with it. All the esport "stars" are against this.

[Kithelle]

You dont have to raid for gear, you can get as good as raidgear with a high pvp-rating. And for winning rated-pvp, or am I wrong?

Last time I really heard anything on the topic, mythic raid gear was better than max rated pvp gear...by a noticeable Ilvl...but that was a while ago.

[Deleted]

Yes. Templates and RNG gearing ruin it. Also the prestige system taken over from CoD.
(Taking over from other games and going overboard with RNG are the themes of Legion, nothing innovative in the expansion)

[Krusza]

Far more people were doing rated pvp than raiding for the majority of this game's history. Very ignorant comment. It's no coincidence that this game subscriber numbers have tanked in unison with falling rated pvp activity. Raiding will always be a niche in this game few people are interested in.

Err... no.

Be interested in seeing those statistics.

[mmowin]

uh I see all this speculation. Does anyone have any stats or a website that says pvp is on the decline?

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Can't even have fun in unrated bgs. Everything is streamlined. There's no creativity. Want to try that warlock build with tons of crit that sucks but will give you big numbers? Nope, can't have that. Do you have alchemy and want to use those pots in bgs? Nope, can't do that(some low level twinks seem to be able to, but I don't know how they are cheating the system). Engineering? Nope, can't use that.
You can't even work around the unbalance in low levels bgs because you can't twink with gear, enchants and potions. Just play priest or don't bother.

"But this what players asked for, this is what you wanted!!11"
Yeah, I know people asked for this - but you shouldn't always listen. They could have given rated gameplay templates and free gear that couldn't be used anywhere else, but they should've kept unrated the way it was.

They haven't even added any fun bgs. Well, I like Kotmogu, but the other ones they've added in recent years are no fun at all - with retarded achievements on top of it all.
They don't even bother to give old bgs like WSG and AB alternative maps colourwise. Shouldn't be that hard.

Edit: And the whole "reward" system. You get fucking pocket change of 200g for gaining a rank. That's what you get for picking up some ancient gnome bladder in a random world quest that takes 1 minute max to do. You also get no AP. And "world pvp" is dead because of lack of templates. Some random instant cast deals one third or half of your health in damage. Lots of fun, indeed.

[Tyrannica]

Raiding will always be a niche in this game few people are interested in.

So, you never played wow Legion?

[Illana]

uh I see all this speculation. Does anyone have any stats or a website that says pvp is on the decline?

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752538520

that's some stats for you

[Dyluck]

As much as id love to jump on the blizzard bashing bandwagon for dropping the ball on pvp, i think the general community needs a wag of the finger. This also applies for PvE, but the toxic behavior of the community just kills all fun in the game. The moment one mistake happens everyone just goes into a flame fest and what not. Even if you are winning that irrelevant random bg, you can suddenly have 1/3 of your team just raging at each other and eventually cost you the game.

[RussW210]

Well, they originally were making the power climb in Legion PVP be prestigeing and that was the justification for templates. Then they turned prestige into a pointless grind b/c you get everything after Prestige 1 and keep it.

There is literally no incentive to do BG's. The gear is crap.

[Deleted]

Seems like every forum I go to people are saying that no one is playing pvp in WoW but whenever I log in and queue up for a bg I almost always get an insta pop. Same goes for arenas, I have no problem finding people to play with in LFG especially at low cr. So why is everyone saying it's on the decline. Is there some website out there that's showing that? As someone who does pvp casually, I think pvp couldn't be in a better place and it feels more active than previous expansion anyway.

if you are playing melee (any class)then this xpack is great but if you are dps caster its beyond frustrating so i can see lots and lots of main caster toons getting benched in favor of a melee.

[Livevil]

uh I see all this speculation. Does anyone have any stats or a website that says pvp is on the decline?

Gonna post EU stats only:

Season Characters on Ladder

WoD S1 --> 320732
WoD S2 --> 154544 (At this point the game has lost 50% of the subscriber base, marks the lowest participation ever in recent years)
WoD S3 --> 298214

Leg S1 --> 211390
Leg S2 --> 132000
Leg S3 --> 98000

for MoP, s15 was around Wod S1 and s14 slightly lower (arenamate has taken down mop statistics)

A couple of notes : Stats are from arenamate.net, for the last 2 seasons knowing the r1 cutoff and how many people got it you can calculate the active characters on the ladder. Regardless how bad an expansion is, the first and last season always have higher participation compared to the in between seasons, due to the game being new/returning players getting ready for the next expansion. This is nothing new, it happens in pve as well.

The numbers are from rated 3v3 and im guessing rbg numbers are gonna be even worse. Also, it doesnt reflect the loss of motivation for the casual to participate in pvp for gear etc (there's absolutely no reason to do pvp as a casual right now).

[Deleted]

Err... no.

Be interested in seeing those statistics.

The whole reason they put LFR in the game in cata was because hardly anyone was raiding and the vast majority of the playerbase never progressed beyond karazhan/new naxx pugs. At the time Blizzard stated the percentage of players who were raiding Black Temple and it was a shockingly small number. Raiding was a niche and ironically the main reason most people raided at the time was to acquire gear to use in arena.

The focus on raiding as the game's core is actually a recent thing. Pvp was never designed to be central to the game, but arena did turn out to be that popular with the playerbase that during peak years that it carried the game. In those Blizzcons the raiding competitions were seen as an afterthought while the pvp tournaments were huge, whereas now if anything it has reversed.

[jackofwind]

They don't. They stopped trying in late WotLK.
Yes, PvE is core gameplay of WoW, PvP is a side activity.

You realise they just launched a new dedicated WoW e-Sports website right? And leading up to that were the promotional shout-outs they started doing.

Honestly, some people.

[Caolela]

You realise they just launched a new dedicated WoW e-Sports website right? And leading up to that were the promotional shout-outs they started doing.

Honestly, some people.

Yes and moreover, here's some indication of how well Blizz's ill-considered wet dream of PvP e-sports has been going...a thread I started a couple of weeks ago on the arena Euro Cup. The general consensus was:

"THIS IS AS BORING AS FUCK."

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...a-European-Cup

Not that PvP is a "mini-game" or "side activity" like so many people have glommed onto as an excuse for Blizz's shit design, but as a spectator game it's not great. Sure, people watch the arena tourneys at Blizzcon because that's all there is in WoW that's even remotely watchable as a spectator. But it still kinda sucks.

I mean, can you imagine Blizzcon running Mythic raid tourneys or RBG tourneys or pet battle tourneys? People would be committing suicide in the aisles...

[Krusza]

There's a reason why WoW eSports will never be a thing.

It's too hard to watch and 90% of people in this game have no idea what they're doing let alone what other people are doing.

A common thing I see is people saying "all I see is people running around pillars".

I can watch something like a CS:GO tourney without ever playing the game because there's no in-depth game knowledge required to know what's going on. Even with something like LoL (which I'm terrible at) I can still watch tournies and understand what's going on, they just work a lot better for spectating.

I've always said it, and I'll say it again:

RBGs should of been the main PvP focus. It's a lot more fun to watch a spectator, and it's a lot easier to understand for people who may not have much game knowledge.

I know most people currently despise RBGs, but if the focus was put into that instead of arena (if it was released in TBC instead of Cata) I'd bet that WoW would be a substantial eSports right now.

[docterfreeze]

Class design is ass so PvP is ass, an obvious correlation. The template experiment and the lottery gear isn't helping either.

[rda]

There's a reason why WoW eSports will never be a thing.

It's too hard to watch and 90% of people in this game have no idea what they're doing let alone what other people are doing.

A common thing I see is people saying "all I see is people running around pillars".

I can watch something like a CS:GO tourney without ever playing the game because there's no in-depth game knowledge required to know what's going on. Even with something like LoL (which I'm terrible at) I can still watch tournies and understand what's going on, they just work a lot better for spectating.

If only "hard to watch" was the biggest problem.

Arenas are boring to watch even when you do understand what is going on and where the plays are.

The number of interesting plays per game is miniscule. Frequently, a game has none. When interesting plays do happen, they rarely affect the outcome. The roster of "strategies" is laughable. Etc.

"Hard to watch" is an issue, but once you get past that issue you are going to face more and bigger issues. It's broken through and through.

I've always said it, and I'll say it again:

RBGs should of been the main PvP focus. It's a lot more fun to watch a spectator, and it's a lot easier to understand for people who may not have much game knowledge.

I know most people currently despise RBGs, but if the focus was put into that instead of arena (if it was released in TBC instead of Cata) I'd bet that WoW would be a substantial eSports right now.

(Please hold me until I stop vomiting... OK... Thanks, I am feeling better.)

RBGs are a complete no go in their current state.

IF. IF. IF they change them A LOT and they suddenly become interesting (a tall order). Then maybe RBGs can work as a spectator sport (oh, dear, I think I am going to vomit again...). But I wouldn't hold my breath.

RBGs are much worse than even arenas. That "oh, right, I understand what is going on in RBGs better than I understand what is going on in arenas" bit is not going to save anything. OK, fine, you understand what is going on in RBGs. You understand that these guys are having a 10-minute stalemate with AOE and fruitless attempts to break things from both sides which are boring after the first two minutes. Because they are fruitless. But at least you understand what is going on, right? Have fun watching this shit.

[Resentless]

Let me put it simple. Darkspear and Tichondrius were the biggest PvP oriented servers in the US, obviously they were high/full pop depending on the time of the day(including after server capacity was increased). Currently they are low pop.

PvP started declining rapidly the moment Holinka took over, and rated PvP has been next to dead for the last two expansions.

While I agree pvp got worse when holinka came, despite more focus being placed on it, the server pop thing happened to every single server in WoD because they increased sever capacity. My server on EU (Outland back in the day) was high/full/locked depending on time of day/year and it went to low overnight in WoD.