Is PVP in WoW really on the decline?

[Osmeric]

If you hear every minute of every hour of every day "I'm completely underpowered, need buffs!" or - even better - the typical "Nerf stone, paper is fine, sincerely scissors", there is a point where you basically switch off. Hence: non-constructive feedback is not only not helping but actually hurting because it makes devs switch off.

Noone goes to work saying: "I'm going to fuck over my customers today". So, the devs will have a reason to do what they do, especially given that they will have to work in a team and challenge ideas against each other. It's always easy to second-guess decisions and changes from your armchair, so you should probably just put yourself into the shoes of the devs first before making statements on them not doing anything.

"Non-constructive" feedback isn't to the devs. It's to the guy with the power to replace the devs. That guy doesn't really care why things have failed, only that they have, and so badly that new blood is needed.

[Deleted]

"Non-constructive" feedback isn't to the devs. It's to the guy with the power to replace the devs. That guy doesn't really care why things have failed, only that they have, and so badly that new blood is needed.

Oh my, that's a bit naive, isn't it? Believe me, a corporation like Blizzard does not fire people because a couple of their customers with a hurt ego made a hate-post about the game. Besides, I would bet that any change that is implemented in the game has made its way through the corporate approval process beforehand anyway. There is no one guy who makes a decision and that's why the game is as it is.

Lastly: "That guy" with the power to replace the devs definitely will have other things to do than sift through non-constructive forum posts to make up his opinion of "oh, maybe I need to change the PvP team"

[Osmeric]

Oh my, that's a bit naive, isn't it? Believe me, a corporation like Blizzard does not fire people because a couple of their customers with a hurt ego made a hate-post about the game.

It would only be naive if you think the only two effects of feedback are "ignored" or "follow demand slavishly". But that's a silly strawman of your own construction.

[Deleted]

So... my arena queues are less than 30 seconds, my random BG queues are up to 3m.

The skirmish queue can be pretty bad though.

My opinion is that it's the best it's ever been in acessability. Only problem are the rampant pre-made exploits.

Aside from that... it's mostly people who thought PvP is to pwn undergeared people with your gear and had a kick out of that. I think it best to ignore them cause they are toxic players.

I will agree RBG's are a pain and very toxic. Could do with those beeing removed. It might clean up random BG from the exploits aswell.

[Tyrean]

The queues are faster now if you are alliance on US and Horde on EU, but I honestly don't have a reason for why that is the case. Overall numbers are down by a large margin, sot he only thing that would make sense to me is that the games are shorter. There are less people to play against, and you do get matched with people above and below you by too large of an MMR difference for my tastes, but the only thing that makes sense for the faster queue times are the faster games.

Anyone else have a good explanation of why the queues are faster?

[Gestopft]

My opinion is that it's the best it's ever been in acessability. Only problem are the rampant pre-made exploits.

Aside from that... it's mostly people who thought PvP is to pwn undergeared people with your gear and had a kick out of that. I think it best to ignore them cause they are toxic players.

Yeah, if you really enjoyed squashing undergeared players then this is not the expansion for you. If you are an altoholic with an army of undergeared toons, then you're having a much better time.

[Manabomb]

I saw this coming, honestly. Between the crazy damage tanks can do, the even dumb-er damage DPS can pull and all the CC. It's pretty much any other WoW expansion all over again for PvP. If you like that, great! But if you prefer substance and balance over "stun stun stun stun udedlol", it's definitely not impressive.

I'm still holding out for them to follow FFXIV's path and just separate PvE and PvP entirely. Its the only way this shit show is getting balanced, which is much better than pretending PvE burst/consistent damage rotations are perfectly acceptable in PvP.

And players would have to relearn the game my ass. All Blizzard would have to do is drop the button count to something similar to Overwatch or Diablo 3 and then any braindead casual with a mouse and keyboard can understand it.

[Deleted]

I increasingly see the same names when I do random battlegrounds for the daily win, I can play morning or night, with or without mercenary mode, the chances are I'll be in the same group as someone I've played with in the past few days. Participation is really low in Legion.

[Caolela]

No, the whining largely stops not because of that realization that the issues are complex. It stops because people just leave. There's no use to complain, nothing changes. The blues say they are listening, and I can't know if they do or don't, but they sure as heck do pretty much nothing after supposedly hearing the complaints. The regular tuning of the specs is all they do, this tuning doesn't help and it takes very little time to do, development-effort wise. So, people are just leaving. That's why this forum is a desert and that's why the complaints are disappearing. When there will be zero people playing, there will be zero complaints.

Or the sort of corollary to that is: when only the hardcore fanboys are left, there will be zero complaints.

Blizzard Blue Post: "Hey guys! It looks like shit sandwiches again! But good news everyone! This time you can get mustard instead of mayo!"

Normal Player: "I don't like shit sandwiches, Mr. Blue. I don't want them." *unsub/uninstall

Hardcore Fanboy: "I can haz mustard now too? YAY BLIZZ!"

[plaits]

I increasingly see the same names when I do random battlegrounds for the daily win, I can play morning or night, with or without mercenary mode, the chances are I'll be in the same group as someone I've played with in the past few days. Participation is really low in Legion.

Anecdote != data. I have never noticed this. In fact I know of lots of people who have done PVP for the first time ever in Legion because of the Prestige system being the only way to get the relevant skins/mounts/titles etc. Queue times are quick. I don't think there is a participation issue at all, not in random BGs.

In rated, maybe there is.

[rda]

Or the sort of corollary to that is: when only the hardcore fanboys are left, there will be zero complaints.

Blizzard Blue Post: "Hey guys! It looks like shit sandwiches again! But good news everyone! This time you can get mustard instead of mayo!"

Normal Player: "I don't like shit sandwiches, Mr. Blue. I don't want them." *unsub/uninstall

Hardcore Fanboy: "I can haz mustard now too? YAY BLIZZ!"

It is tempting to go into the hardcore vs casual drama, but I won't.

The casuals have been hit hard and the hardcores have been hit very hard as well. There is no beef between them. All issues are strictly between the players and Blizzard. Blizzard made PVP shit. Let's leave it at that.

PS: BTW, if anyone thinks those players who participate in WoW arena tournaments are happy, they aren't. An average top is 1x happy because he gets to play in a tournament = recognition / pride. He is 10x happy because he gets to advertise his stream and / or otherwise try to advance his "career" as a pro gamer, not necessarily with WoW but as a result of the exposure and getting out and meeting potentially useful people. He mostly doesn't care about the gameplay by now, went numb to it, that gets a zero. And he is 1000x unhappy that WoW PVP is shit that keeps getting worse, and is very, very concerned that he is on the sinking ship. So, in the end, that particular hardcore *genuinely cares* about all players, first and foremost low-rated and unrated. Because that's in his interest.

[twistedmynd]

It's kind of funny to see 10 pages of posts about WoW PVP being crap, declining, dying, whatever... and not a single one of them (admittedly, I only skipped through most of it) has any constructive criticism. As in: What would make PvP better? Not "Improve class balance, make gear less RNG, I don't like the template", but concrete ideas.

Seriously. Where is the helpful feedback here? Trying for it on the official forums for science here https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20758225897

[docterfreeze]

Seriously. Where is the helpful feedback here? Trying for it on the official forums for science here https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20758225897

Oh lol. I posted in that thread. I'm the one that suggested a class design petition. If you've played legion for over a month you'll know why but I'll give some examples.

1. Skilless, thoughtless, passive use of abilities such as auto bubble, auto blur, auto blazing speed, auto metamorphosis, auto wings.

2. RNG and passive abundance in talents. I went through each spec's talent tree and counted how many brainless passives there were. Ones that simply added a percent, number, or random chance to an ability. Any given spec had somewhere between 5 to 14 of these passives. In MoP, each talent tree had 1 to 4 of them.

3. RNG in general. The amount of tooltips that contain the word "chance" or "random" in legion.... it's terrible. Destro lock's mastery is the biggest offender imo. What state of mind do you have to be in to think that's an acceptable mastery?

4. Dealing damage. Snapshotting was removed in legion, along with overlapped abilities between specs. Good mages in MoP would put up living bomb each time they froze an enemy which would snapshot shatter and cause each tick to crit. Good destro warlocks could wait til they had a backlash proc to start bursting, making fear-dsoul-CB-backlash-fel flame-conflag-shadowburn an instant death combo if the enemy didn't have help. Good windwalkers could pull off a 100-0 combo but it took good CD and chi management and calm hands to pull off consistently.

All of this leads to the simplification of classes. I enjoyed the first month of legion but I began asking myself "What are the deeper mechanics of my class? What outplays can I perform? How can I counter xyz with the tools I have?" The answer to those were, "There are none, there are none, and you can't." I saw that within the first two weeks of legion I had already learned everything about my class, so I moved on to something else hoping to find depth, only to find nothing.

Classes are the core of this game. If they aren't fun to play, rewarding to learn, and deep in mechanics, then what's the point of playing them?

[rda]

Seriously. Where is the helpful feedback here? Trying for it on the official forums for science here https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20758225897

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post46512687

(Hi, guy #3750 who thinks he is cool for wanting "constructive feedback" but does not take even a minute to look it up, having a near infinite supply.)

- - - Updated - - -

Oh lol. I posted in that thread. I'm the one that suggested a class design petition. If you've played legion for over a month you'll know why but I'll give some examples. [...]

He doesn't care.

He just wanted to convey that he isn't like others, those perpetual whiners. He is different and constructive.

If he keeps at it, it will finally get to him that the problem is not AT ALL "lack of constructive feedback", of which there is none. But he has to actually follow up a couple of times, that might be too high a barrier for someone who just wanted to convey that he is, basically, cool and not like others.

[twistedmynd]

Oh lol. I posted in that thread. I'm the one that suggested a class design petition. If you've played legion for over a month you'll know why but I'll give some examples.

1. Skilless, thoughtless, passive use of abilities such as auto bubble, auto blur, auto blazing speed, auto metamorphosis, auto wings.

2. RNG and passive abundance in talents. I went through each spec's talent tree and counted how many brainless passives there were. Ones that simply added a percent, number, or random chance to an ability. Any given spec had somewhere between 5 to 14 of these passives. In MoP, each talent tree had 1 to 4 of them.

3. RNG in general. The amount of tooltips that contain the word "chance" or "random" in legion.... it's terrible. Destro lock's mastery is the biggest offender imo. What state of mind do you have to be in to think that's an acceptable mastery?

4. Dealing damage. Snapshotting was removed in legion, along with overlapped abilities between specs. Good mages in MoP would put up living bomb each time they froze an enemy which would snapshot shatter and cause each tick to crit. Good destro warlocks could wait til they had a backlash proc to start bursting, making fear-dsoul-CB-backlash-fel flame-conflag-shadowburn an instant death combo if the enemy didn't have help. Good windwalkers could pull off a 100-0 combo but it took good CD and chi management and calm hands to pull off consistently.

All of this leads to the simplification of classes. I enjoyed the first month of legion but I began asking myself "What are the deeper mechanics of my class? What outplays can I perform? How can I counter xyz with the tools I have?" The answer to those were, "There are none, there are none, and you can't." I saw that within the first two weeks of legion I had already learned everything about my class, so I moved on to something else hoping to find depth, only to find nothing.

Classes are the core of this game. If they aren't fun to play, rewarding to learn, and deep in mechanics, then what's the point of playing them?

You know, everything you posted here is really good actionable feedback. You should copy and paste that into the other thread.

[Caolela]

It is tempting to go into the hardcore vs casual drama, but I won't.

The casuals have been hit hard and the hardcores have been hit very hard as well. There is no beef between them. All issues are strictly between the players and Blizzard. Blizzard made PVP shit. Let's leave it at that.

PS: BTW, if anyone thinks those players who participate in WoW arena tournaments are happy, they aren't. An average top is 1x happy because he gets to play in a tournament = recognition / pride. He is 10x happy because he gets to advertise his stream and / or otherwise try to advance his "career" as a pro gamer, not necessarily with WoW but as a result of the exposure and getting out and meeting potentially useful people. He mostly doesn't care about the gameplay by now, went numb to it, that gets a zero. And he is 1000x unhappy that WoW PVP is shit that keeps getting worse, and is very, very concerned that he is on the sinking ship. So, in the end, that particular hardcore *genuinely cares* about all players, first and foremost low-rated and unrated. Because that's in his interest.

Well idk that the hardcores don't have a problem with the casuals and see things as strictly Blizzard's issues. Maybe they do but can't bring themselves to admit it. When there's a complaint about the game or something that Blizz should change, we've seen endless threads blaming "casuals" to "git gud" and blah blah.

For a lot of people Blizz can still do no wrong/it's not their fault, or something that they "had" to do because of "x". And the standard idiotic excuses that, "Blizz is a company that's in biz to make money" and "It's their game. You don't have to play it." But I see your point as well.

[RelaZ]

Well idk that the hardcores don't have a problem with the casuals and see things as strictly Blizzard's issues. Maybe they do but can't bring themselves to admit it. When there's a complaint about the game or something that Blizz should change, we've seen endless threads blaming "casuals" to "git gud" and blah blah.

For a lot of people Blizz can still do no wrong/it's not their fault, or something that they "had" to do because of "x". And the standard idiotic excuses that, "Blizz is a company that's in biz to make money" and "It's their game. You don't have to play it." But I see your point as well.

That's because a lot of the shit causals complain about are not actual problems with the game but with their skill level, thus the "git guud" responses. When Blizzard listens to casuals when it comes to class design we get expansions like WoD and Legion.

[Caolela]

You know, everything you posted here is really good actionable feedback. You should copy and paste that into the other thread.

Go look at the Blizz forum PTR section. Every fucking patch they've had loads of constructive, well-informed feedback and suggestions from players that would ameliorate several issues. I've read a lot of them. But it goes almost totally ignored or rejected by Blizz.

If you're playing a PTR, you're basically doing Blizzes bug & systems testing work for free. That's all they need people in it for.

Thus it is obvious that Blizz has a certain agenda already planned well in advance of a PTR. They won't deviate from it, except slightly or with tuning adjustments, and only if it dovetails nicely with their plans - which are always made around the best way to increase profits as the #1 consideration. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

[Deleted]

The problem is that even for many PvPers Arena is kinda boring to watch.

When you're playing it, you're engaged, but when you're watching it, you start realising how dumb some things look, pillar humping, or how long it may take till something happens, downtime due to everyone being out of los is real, but when stuff happens, too much is going on, esp if people pop CDs, and if one doesn't know that/those class(es) well enough, one may have no idea what's happened, well, besides that someone got rekt.

Pretty much this.

I can't really blame Blizzard for PVP state when this game is FIRST a PVE game so PVP is pretty "???" to balance and cover w/o doing errors or mistake.

Also ARENA are boring as fuck "pillar los" "cc this then cc that rinse and repeat" atleast BG even if you get the most retard team that don't cooperate are actually FUN

[docterfreeze]

Go look at the Blizz forum PTR section. Every fucking patch they've had loads of constructive, well-informed feedback and suggestions from players that would ameliorate several issues. I've read a lot of them. But it goes almost totally ignored or rejected by Blizz. I think rda has mentioned this several times as well.

If you're playing a PTR, you're basically doing Blizzes bug & systems testing work for free. That's all they need people in it for.

Thus it is obvious that Blizz has a certain agenda already planned well in advance of a PTR. They won't deviate from it, except slightly or with tuning adjustments, and only if it dovetails nicely with their plans - which are always made around the best way to increase profits as the #1 consideration. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

I don't understand how molesting classes = profit. If classes were as great as they were in MoP I'd be playing 15 hours per day again.