From PvP forums: Arena attendance down 60%

[Ofmanv]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

If you go to http://www.arenajunkies.com/calculator/ you can see that the number of teams taking part in arenas in Season 5 is down 60% compared to season 4.

Struck me a staggering stat.

[Qwios]

I think Arena no longer being a place for scrubs and raiders to gear up because of easy PVE content has more to do with this than with anything to do with balance. I know lots of folks that geared up their mains and then also had arena teams for their alts to gear up as well. Then you had raiders PVPing to get weapons, or to have items to survive certain boss mechanics of Black Temple. None of this is going on currently.

[Ofmanv]

I think Arena no longer being a place for scrubs and raiders to gear up because of easy PVE content has more to do with this than with anything to do with balance. I know lots of folks that geared up their mains and then also had arena teams for their alts to gear up as well. Then you had raiders PVPing to get weapons, or to have items to survive certain boss mechanics of Black Temple. None of this is going on currently.

Why is the thought of acquiring PvP gear for progressing in pvp so foreign to people? Believe it or not there used to be people that PvP'd because they liked competitive PvP.

[stalkerzero]

I almost imagine this new hidden rating quashing the hopes of bad players on getting carried or having some luck towards the easier to obtain rated arena items is just going to keep this number plummeting.

Seriously, if you are a player who is considered in the 1300's-1500's it's going to be an incredible deal harder to break out of that ranged and actually obtain rewards.

So, why queue unless you absolutely love the idea of arenas?

[Xs]

Its not helped by the whole S1 thing
If you're not in at least mail, GTFO plx

[Wizzleteats]

All the FOTM Resto Druids from season 3 & 4 are too busy leveling and gearing Paladins?

[Offhand]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

If you go to http://www.arenajunkies.com/calculator/ you can see that the number of teams taking part in arenas in Season 5 is down 60% compared to season 4.

Struck me a staggering stat.

And there was much rejoicing.

[Mahtamori]

I think Arena no longer being a place for scrubs and raiders to gear up because of easy PVE content has more to do with this than with anything to do with balance. I know lots of folks that geared up their mains and then also had arena teams for their alts to gear up as well. Then you had raiders PVPing to get weapons, or to have items to survive certain boss mechanics of Black Temple. None of this is going on currently.

Could be that the "cost" of resilience has made these items unattractive for PvE, this combined with that many people have had their fill of "PvP" not to mention that Blizzard really made Naxxramas accessible (only real problem with this is that there weren't enough additional harder content).
Arena wasn't very interesting to begin with, and removing the rewards for people who don't see Arena as self-fulfilling really should have an impact on the population therein.

[Blooddeity]

60% is a very staggering stat. And the excuse that less scrubs are participating because Naxx is easier to get gear than arena is not valid enough to see a drop from 100 to 40. That is what a 60% decrease means.

Basically there is something esentially wrong with arena and the whole "imbalance" between classes is the cause of this.

There are more people participating in wintergrasp and BGs than arenas because and the rewards for both are less and not to mention that wintergrasp causes high laggspikes.

Arena attendance is dropping because it simply is not that much fun. When i see people shouting out in dalaran screaming WG raid in 15 min, over 80 people gathering up waiting for the portal spamming /train, it's only obvious to see that people are enjoying WG more than arenas. Why? because WG and BGs are not sandbox matches held under a microscope where the outcome of winning or losing comes by either an train of cc's and lockouts or insane damage so people die in several global cooldowns.

Most matches end in 1 or 2 minutes (if not faster), and the biggest frustration is that the fact that your personal improvement as a player is in some form completely irrelevant to actually getting better results. You can be the best mage in the world teamed with the best paladin in the world and still get rofl stomped by a rogue/mage, hunter/paladin, dk/paladin, druid/rogue etc. who might be worse players but have the good fortune of right composition. Then comes the fact that people who had the right composition before can 2 patches later be so screwed that the only way to be competitive again is to level another character.

This is the reason nothing why arena is going to dire straits, and nothing else.

[talitu]

surprised its only a 60% drop myself. i really don't know anyone that arena's now.

for me its the lack of loot. i had 6 level 70's to gear up couple got done in raiding rest were welfare epicced out!

i like me pvp got over 1/4 million HK's across my toons. but arena is shit. one of the earlier post wow blizzcons has one of the devs sitting there saying "yeah, we dropped the gurubashi catacombs BG because death match just doesn't work in wow" and 10 foot to his left was some nugget promoting arena's as the future of esport. /lol

if you want competitive pvp you play a game UT3 or SC. if you cant handle that then you roll a rogue and dominate the last 2 or 3 arena seasons and now flood these boards with massive qq about thier being a new fotm class.

and as the loots gone i see no reason whatso ever anyone else would bother with arena maybe its only a 60% drop because people like me who actually made a team and played in the first week (before realising how crap the gear was or easy pve was!) are showing up in the lists

[Shamb]

I am not surprised.

Rewards sucks + tougher to get high rating except some very specific comp + total imbalance of class, not just comp = arena suckage.

Arena now holds 0 interest for ppl that likes pve.
Arena now doesn't hold much interest for many ppl that likes pvp.
PvP gear is now so weak that top end PvE gear is almost as good for pvp....

[jaddboy]

No reward + no fun = no thanks.

It wouldn't be the end of the world if arena went away forever. All the "pros" can go back to TF2 or whatever.

[Tyrgeis]

I enjoy arena without a shadow of a doubt, but I haven't played a game in 6 weeks now. In TBC seasons I did not like playing 2 vs 2 at all and simply did it in S3 to get my S3 swords and then quit 2 vs 2 again with only the odd return to the bracket to help out a friend who wanted points or to kill a bit of time. Knowing that when the gates open and you can see your enemy you sometimes already know whether you've won or lost didn't appeal to me. So I stuck with 3 vs 3 and 5 vs 5. Our setups were curious and less than cookie cutter -made up out of characters me and my friends just happened to play- but the fights were enjoyable and always lasted at least beyond the opening of the doors. We did reasonably well and some of our toons sported S3 shoulders.

Unfortunatly in the current season even in 3 vs 3 and 5 vs 5 you no longer always have a fighting chance. Not if you don't run a solid comp. Combine this with not needing the loot (PvE gear works just fine at the moment) and there's no reason at all for me nor my friends to play arena. Instead, we run Wintergrasp, battlegrounds and we raid to get gear.

Let's hope S6 will do better.

[zx00]

I really think it's just the major imbalance issues and dmg scaling so high that if you are counter comped you have to play perfectly to even stand a chance against them. Like when I do 2s on my warrior, the only time I actually thought "oh wow I might actually be countercomping them" is when I see a warlock (and btw the amount of dmg I can do a warlock as fury warrior is insane....like almost 2-3 times their dmg some games) every other team I just think "god I hope they are dumb so I might actually stand a chance".

[Ethanlien]

Whilst the specific issue of resilience and plate classes are a deterrence, it never really stopped people casually playing or loosing in arena.

The dreadful gear design and easy availability of arena gear from badge and VoA, i think contributed a lot to the need to even collect arena points. Not to mention it is now reset at end of season

[Tyrgeis]

Not to mention it is now reset at end of season

Shows how much I've been paying attention as of late- they reset now, do they? If that's the case, what little reason I still had to play in S5 (jump start in S6) is not actually there any more.

[froman]

Ugly gear models + Lack of top end weapons + Easy as pie PVE = death of arenas...

There has never been balance in arena and if you think otherwise it is because you were a druid, lock, or warrior.

[Gotjuice]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

If you go to http://www.arenajunkies.com/calculator/ you can see that the number of teams taking part in arenas in Season 5 is down 60% compared to season 4.

Struck me a staggering stat.

IDK if its been said before, I didnt read the thread. But the main reason for the 40% reduction is level 80. During the 4 seasons in BC teams were made, teams that ppl really didnt play but had teams. So at the end of s4 the number of teams was huge. We get to 80 and not everyone who plays wow is 80 already, a lot of ppl dont even play anymore. The number of teams at 70 was huge because of the 4 seasons at 70 and all the teams made during that time. Those teams, even tho a lot of them were inactive, count for the "arena attendance" as u named it, right now there are less teams at 80 but everyday there are more. In 4 seasons at 80 we'll have a lot of teams too. This season the teams getting Gladiator (since its based on a %) is way lower than past seasons in my BG. This season 2v2 70 teams get Glad while in S4 166 teams got Glad in 2v2 same BG.

[venidar]

I can't say I really care. Arena isn't and never was fun for me. I prefer massive PvP as opposed to the smaller scale stuff. Arena also goes against Blizzards idea of making WoW accessible to everyone. Putting some of the best PvP gears with Arena ratings on them is just so fail. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against having Arena in the game. Obviously some players really like it. I just don't like being forced to do something I have no interest in, just to get some of the best PvP gear.

[Amgyn]

This isn't surprising at all...
WOTLK has new content = less players just 'wasting time' in arena, more players leveling up... etc.
arena armor and weapons are harder to get and less usefull in non-pvp setting = no more "have to PVP-to-PVE" players in arena.
end of season approaching = most people got their gear and are just relaxing now, new players don't want to join since their rating/points will be reset anyway.
less shiny gear = "show off" players aren't interested....