Changes that can potentially improve PVP

[Thelxi]

Well before anything they just need to add PvP rewards back to the game. It's a gaping hole and huge problem and should be addressed before anything else.

Once that is rectified, I agree solo-Q is a great idea. I can see how soloQ arena would not work, in the sense that it could not really be the same ladder as regular arena. Arena is all about coordination and communication, at least at the bleeding edge, and a soloQ could not provide the same experience (or performance). It wouldn't be fair and cause chaos.

RBGs however, can absolutely and very easily become soloQ. Next to no one even does RBG anyway, so by default Blizzard has plenty of room to reimagine RBGs from the ground up. More so there is no serious RBG ladder; you will not impress many people with any RBG rating, other than those trying to pug.. RBGs. SoloQ is not just entirely possible here, it is clearly a positive direction to take RBGs in. It might even revive the entire thing.

[Loxotron]

Edit: I should probably mention that these changes focuses entirely on improving PVP content wise, not gameplay wise while it seems the general consensus gameplay wise would be to revert pruning and bring back more complex gameplay. I also decided to not add soloqueue as one of my points because they just mentioned in the past QA that there's no plans to add it although I do think it'd be a good thing to add.

So currently PVP has plenty of room to improve so I decided to make a list (a large wall of text) of things that could be done to improve PVP as an experience for BFA. This is mostly related to content as opposed to balancing although I do talk about rewards and gear too. I decided to include things related to both world PVP, casual pup, and rated pvp. The whole idea of this is to allow people who only wants to play WoW for PVP to have so many reason to play it. Pretty much it would provide people with the ability to log on everyday and do something different with PVP that still provides meaningful progression.

1. Stop pushing for 3v3 arena to be the end all be all for rated pvp content Blizzard should support RBGs as well. Currently Blizzard seems to only support 3v3 arena as a game mode. It’s understandable why they decided to not give gladiator titles and mounts to 2v2 due to it being far harder to balance but currently there is not much of a compelling reason to do RBGs. Right now Blizzard only acknowledges 3v3 arena with their focus being on Tournament play. Why not try to make RBGs compelling? In terms of an esports perspective (which it seems Blizzard wants pvp to be so bad) RBGs provide an easy to follow ruleset for any viewer. It’s easy to keep up with a capture the flag match, or to see what teams can gather the most resources in Arathi Basin. Objectives are game modes can be extremely fun to watch and with their casters they can show off really hype moments such as a player gaining four killing blows in rapid succession. Besides the esports perspective it would encourage far more cooperative PVP play with more players. Currently many people do RBGs for the one time rewards such as the legacy transmog. Once you get that there’s no longer the carrot on the stick that keeps you wanting to come back. The fact of the matter is that getting 10 people becomes far more of a chore when you know you can get one other person and get the same rewards or two other people and potentially get mounts and a title. One solution is to give RBG players their own mount, and their own transmog set to go after. For example 3v3 arena can still have recolors of the raid sets while RBGs can be far more akin to Season 16 in WoD where you get a set inspired but themed differently from the raid sets. In addition to that Blizzard should introduce 6v6 RBGs permanently should they see it as a better way to experience RBGs. In addition to this they can introduce solo queuing for RBGs. Also as another compelling reason if you are top 1% for any of the BFA seasons you should gain access to a recolor of the challenge mode set (hey if they have two extra recolors may as well use em amiright? Keeps them exclusive too). Basically what I want is for Blizzard to support two modes of PVP instead of only paying attention to 3v3, which honeslty seems like one of the largest reasons we havent seen much new BG content.

2. Blizzard needs to encourage world pvp by adding objectives and different daily/weekly quests. With the new system added in BFA where one can choose whether they want to be on a PVP server through toggle this would be the perfect time to go back and make any zone a worthwhile battlefield. One thing that could be done is to have a daily quest that encourages you to go to a legacy zone. For example there could be a quest that is a call to arms for Outland where you have to capture the Towers in the various zones, gain control of Halaa, and get something like 50-100 kills. This same thing can be applied to all of the other expansion zones. A quest like this could reward a cache with guarenteed gladiator gear along with a huge chunk of honor, marks of honor and currency to buy gear. In addition to that there should be weekly quest that encourages horde and alliance to kill a boss at the capital city while greatly buffing the particular boss for the week. This in addition to a bounty system they thought of introducing would make a great way for World PVP to appeal to both casual and rated players alike.

3. Have a world PVP currency system. Pretty much what I’m asking for here is something like Bloody coins for the timeless isle that applies to all of the zones in WoW except keep it alliance and horde exclusive (although if they have items that flags you for both factions across the world that would be nice too). What a system like this could provide is something that keep PVPers engaged outside of their BG/Arena time. In other words by participating in World PVP blizzard could introduce new items (toys, cosmetic gear, pets, enchantment appearances) that encourages people to PVP but in addition to this have this be a steady way for people to either grind honor (as currently you gain honor at an extremely slow rate) and as a way to get a hold of marks of honor. Also this would be a perfect way to allow people to grind gear outside of instanced PVP as a viable option.

4. Introduce PVP themed world quests throughout all zones (have it alternate though). This branches off of my idea about a call to arms for a specific continent. Pretty much if Northrend was chosen as the call to arms zone in addition to having a daily/weekly quest to take over towers (for any expansion that doesn’t have capturable buildings just make some existing buildings capturable) add PVP world quests in these zones. All of the rewards here would be quick rewards such as additional honor or a piece of pvp gear. But don’t make PVP world quests not require PVP as it’d be a waste. They should all include player vs player interaction that can even encourage group player with some of them.

5. Make use of the older World PVP zones. Currently we have Wintergrasp, Too Barad, and Ashran that are all currently useless in terms of current rewards. Blizzard wants to keep the zones in their respective old level brackets containing whatever old rewards they have. So my solution to making them useful again is just having queueable versions of these zones that are scaled to level 120 with updated rewards. In other words if I want to access level 80 wintergrasp I still just go there the same exact way but instead there’s just an option for a level 120 version now. In this queue it could be separated in a playlist called large scale battles that have people queue in 40 player+ zones. This would essentially add in Isle of Conquest, and Alterac Valley in this playlist too allowing people who want to participate in PVP zones with PVE elements to have own playlist. I say because people in this playlist would expect to play longer games this would be the perfect time to introduce an old school AV mode where mob health is greatly increased that way we don’t have the stupidly quick rush to Stormpike or Drekthar,

6. Adjust the current gearing system while getting rid of templates (just give low iLVL players an iLVL boost in instanced pvp). In legion with the way gear currently works PVP gear is no longer the most suitable for PVP. It requires far more work to get it due to rating requirements making Mythic+ a far more viable way to gain gear. In addition to this the template system has taken away all control a player once had with the stats of their character. In addition to this for those who do relies on obtaining PVP gear they have to rely on a loot box system that never guarantees loot. Due to all of these issues I think moving back to a currency system as a way to acquire gear is the best way to avoid these gear issues. Have loot boxes be a bonus for winning rather than the main acquisition of gear. The WoD system of gearing wasn’t broken as it allowed PVP gear to always remain the best in PVP situations with the only issue being the locking of offset pieces in loot boxes from Ashran. As long as all offset pieces can be obtainable through a normal vendor the WoD system is the best thing for pvp gear as it scales up in combat which takes away from the crazy inbalancing of World PVP allowing for PVPers to compete with mythic geared players while in instanced pvp mythic geared players are scaled down 10 ilvls below the best PVP gear like in WoD. Blizzard can still keep a base item level scale to allow lower geared players to be able to compete with geared players to an extent by having them be around 25 item levels below top item level pvp gear while having something like honor gear being 15 item levels below what was formerly known as conquest gear but just get rid of the template system entirely in favor of the scalable PVP gear. In addition to this add resilience as a pvp gear stat to combat the craziness of mythic level trinkets in outdoor content. This helps with the issue of creating glass cannons but it also maintains PVP gear as superior at all times as even lower item level pvp gear should still compete with PVE gear in world pvp situations.

7. Have a PVP capital/pvp meet up place. I feel that this is severely needed for PVPers since there’s not really a true place to go. I feel that with the theme of Battle For Azeroth we could easily have an Island in-between Kul Tiras and Zandalar that allows both alliance and horde to meet up as a sort of place themed for PVPers. This would host things such as PVP vendors, a dueling area, an arena for both alliance and horde to fight while flagged. A 1v1 arena area where people can place bets for wager matches. This would essentially be a place where you could grab a quick 2’s partner or where your RBG team could meet up to do some quick duels and test their talents. Also while I said to get rid of templates if they are here to stay this arena could easily be the place where templates are enabled for dueling and target dummy purposes. This could also easily be a way to add in other additional cool pvp achievements similar to the Ratstallion achievement. This could also be a place where a brawlers guild system could be applied to PVP should they decide to do it. Have it be an island where Alliance and Horde are on opposite ends of the island that way anyone who ventures past the protection of guards can engage in World PVP straight away.

8. Make honor account wide and have all honor talents available right off the bat. Honestly I still don’t see Blizzard’s reasoning for not doing this. They say they want it to be a sort of badge of honor to say you a skilled with a character but it’s only a participation reward that only tells someone that you’ve kept up with your world quests the entire expansion. This discourages switching to a new main midway through an expansion and unlike the gear grinds that were still fairly obtainable in the past the moment you miss out on gaining honor for a few weeks/months you are forever behind. It is also discouraging that you don’t gain all that much honor through most PVP activities besides world quests and your daily bg/arena for those who are behind.

9. Add more BGs/Brawls. This is a no brainer. Blizzard should just separate BGs by gametype and focus on making new maps for existing game modes. Not every map needs to be a unique game mode although they can certainly have some BGs be different game modes with a twist. This goes for brawls also. I’d make brawls be weekly rather than biweekly and add more over the course of every content patch. Honestly there’s no reason to leave PVP players in the dark with no new maps. Blizzard can either make a playlist system while a person can exclusively queue up for say Capture the Flag battlegrounds or in the Random Battleground option have it where all similar battlegrounds are categorized as one. In other words if I don’t want to play warning gulch by extension it should apply to twin peaks too since they are the same besides the map.

10. Add in elite sets as a reward for CURRENT high rated players. Basically what I’m saying is have a way to bring back the old elite sets. If Blizzard wants to encourage people to go into RBGs make it an RBG only reward that requires 2k+ (just a ballpark number it should probably change depending on the season as 2k one season can be alot easier than 2k in another season) rating if you want the old sets. Otherwise have it obtainable in both rated 3v3 and RBGs. There’s no reason to have mythic raid sets be obtainable all the way through the end of time but not have the pvp elite sets be. By having them be locked by CURRENT rating it encourages people to keep returning every season to get every set. In addition to that the sets still maintain their prestige as you still are required to obtain higher ratings to have the sets. Because the titles

11. The reward structure of the prestige system should be change. The legion prestige system is extremely disappointing when you get relatively useless rewards on your 23rd rank. Like honestly getting AP or Marks of Honor is seriously disappointing when those should be passively unlocked through PVP. What can be done is adding far more mounts and even giving one vicious saddle as a one time catchup method to the usual arena/rbg wins. Maybe new transformation items could be added themed around the expansion. Or maybe we can get more alliance and horde themed sets. If we have a better way to obtain honor along with superior rewards it will definitely keep people far more invested.

Some good points but can't agree on everything for sure.
For example i don't know why people consider WoD pvp system as a good one while it was welfare epics for everyone especialy because of Ashran... the flaws of this dynamic ilvl in wpvp is also frustrating.. when hp of target suddenly goes up x2 because he is in pvp set ruins the whole feeling of the game completely. Dunno why people wants to divide the pve and pvp aspects that much, pvp gear should have more suited stats for pvp and pve more suited stats for pve but not compeletly different, here are few examples:
PVP gear can have a bit more stamina and bonuses that improves some pvp abilities, while pve gear can have more stats like hit rating, weapon skill, defence and etc like it was in the past. The system made both worlds happy while not excluding from each other completetly.

I think it is even better scrap the whole pvp system right now and make something similar to warhammer pvp levels with linear progression and also rating on top of it, so some end game pvp items would require both pvp level and rating from arena/rbg.

[ilik2345]

Well before anything they just need to add PvP rewards back to the game. It's a gaping hole and huge problem and should be addressed before anything else.

Better rewards would be nice, something perhaps equivalent to the time and effort of the pve side.

Once that is rectified, I agree solo-Q is a great idea.

Not sure solo queue has much todo with loot, but yep, solo queues would be fun. Maybe

I can see how soloQ arena would not work, in the sense that it could not really be the same ladder as regular arena. Arena is all about coordination and communication, at least at the bleeding edge, and a soloQ could not provide the same experience (or performance). It wouldn't be fair and cause chaos.

RBGs however, can absolutely and very easily become soloQ. Next to no one even does RBG anyway, so by default Blizzard has plenty of room to reimagine RBGs from the ground up. More so there is no serious RBG ladder; you will not impress many people with any RBG rating, other than those trying to pug.. RBGs. SoloQ is not just entirely possible here, it is clearly a positive direction to take RBGs in. It might even revive the entire thing.

Yeah... ok. I'm going to gloss over the fact you don't like RBG's, all i will say is it takes a hell of a lot more co-ordination (and communication) to play a proper rbg then a similar level of arena.

Lets assume solo queue is like lfr, you sign up, the second the roles are forfilled, your thrown into a group, the system does not look at current rating, your hidden mmr, your gear etc. Just looks for either 3 healers 5 dps and 1 tank, or 2 dps and 1 healer >pop< your in. This will mean short queues, good. What it won't have is anyone with a rating they care about, so while people new to pvp can jump into it - the blind will be leading the blind - the people who have xp won't be there. If you ignore that, it could be good to fill up the lower half of arena and rbg tables. Not sure how fun it will be if your matched to a premade team in either arena and rbgs.

Now imagine, the system matches you on your cr + mmr + ilvl, so your grouped with similarly rated people (hopefully similarly skilled). Yeah you could randomly get terrible comps, but most likely you'll either improve your rating or not lose badly. This will be tempting for people who already play, however this will definetly slow down queue times, a lot. I would prefer to wait to get someone of a siimilar skill / gear as me then get a faster queue and get someone who does not know what they are doing.

[Thelxi]

Better rewards would be nice, something perhaps equivalent to the time and effort of the pve side.




Not sure solo queue has much todo with loot, but yep, solo queues would be fun. Maybe



Yeah... ok. I'm going to gloss over the fact you don't like RBG's, all i will say is it takes a hell of a lot more co-ordination (and communication) to play a proper rbg then a similar level of arena.

Lets assume solo queue is like lfr, you sign up, the second the roles are forfilled, your thrown into a group, the system does not look at current rating, your hidden mmr, your gear etc. Just looks for either 3 healers 5 dps and 1 tank, or 2 dps and 1 healer >pop< your in. This will mean short queues, good. What it won't have is anyone with a rating they care about, so while people new to pvp can jump into it - the blind will be leading the blind - the people who have xp won't be there. If you ignore that, it could be good to fill up the lower half of arena and rbg tables. Not sure how fun it will be if your matched to a premade team in either arena and rbgs.

Now imagine, the system matches you on your cr + mmr + ilvl, so your grouped with similarly rated people (hopefully similarly skilled). Yeah you could randomly get terrible comps, but most likely you'll either improve your rating or not lose badly. This will be tempting for people who already play, however this will definetly slow down queue times, a lot. I would prefer to wait to get someone of a siimilar skill / gear as me then get a faster queue and get someone who does not know what they are doing.

RBGs requiring more coordination than arenas is simply not true and tells me you have little or no experience in one or the other.

And yeah, of course they should match people based on MMR. I don't understand the point of your second paragraph because LFR RBG already exists; normal BGs.

And yes queues would go up and climbing solo or duo would be frustrating, but once you put a bit of effort into it and get to IDK like 1800 rating or so, you will get into matches with people that actually want to win. And WoW is sorely lacking such a competitive battleground scene, with RBGs spectacularly failing to fill that void. And not just now, since the moment RBGs were introduced people had to be BRIBED to do RBGs. People have actively avoided RBGs since they were introduced, which you would know if you were around or paying attention.

I don't hate RBGs, this is not just an opinion, I am probably one of the handful of people that that ever truly enjoyed them. Everything I have typed out is fact which you are free to cross-reference with other people.

[Deleted]

Yesterday i got so frustrated playing in 10 dps vs 2 alliance healers in every single game.

I switched to alliance merc mode and the 5 games i played were 10 alliance dps vs 2 horde healers every time.

If both sides are experiencing this on a regular basis why is this even a thing?? Nothing puts people off pvp more than unwinnable games. No wonder que times are so ridiculous when you can still regularly get thrown into that crap in 2018

[potis]

Yesterday i got so frustrated playing in 10 dps vs 2 alliance healers in every single game.

I switched to alliance merc mode and the 5 games i played were 10 alliance dps vs 2 horde healers every time.

If both sides are experiencing this on a regular basis why is this even a thing?? Nothing puts people off pvp more than unwinnable games. No wonder que times are so ridiculous when you can still regularly get thrown into that crap in 2018

Because people cry about everything.

Healer specs arent forced because then people would cry "BUT IT MAKES ME HEAL ALL THE FUCKING TIME" because apparently you cant untick it??

You wont find logic in it, and PvP in WoW is a waste of time either way.

Unless PvP provides gear upgrades to active raid content it will always be ignored, only reason it was ever relevant was because people could get quick off-set items while progressing in Mythic like Rings/Wrists etc, when it comes to higher rating arena, and general gear for the rest.

Sure, 5/100 enjoyed PvP as main activity too.

[Deleted]

Because people cry about everything.

Healer specs arent forced because then people would cry "BUT IT MAKES ME HEAL ALL THE FUCKING TIME" because apparently you cant untick it??

You wont find logic in it, and PvP in WoW is a waste of time either way.

Unless PvP provides gear upgrades to active raid content it will always be ignored, only reason it was ever relevant was because people could get quick off-set items while progressing in Mythic like Rings/Wrists etc, when it comes to higher rating arena, and general gear for the rest.

Sure, 5/100 enjoyed PvP as main activity too.

unsure why you quote me because none of that has anything to do with matchmaking puting teams of 10 dps vs 8 dps 2 healers on both factions, it's clearly a problem for both sides when it really shouldn't be a problem for either side if both are experiencing it.

[Visu]

I like the ideas about world PvP. And about a PvP "hub" in the world.

I agree that the templates have to go.

What about decent rewards for casual BGs? Or a solo queue system for rated BGs?

[khazlol]

i like the template, it kinda solved the hardcore gy camping you would see in very one sided games.

in previous expansions you would occasionally have the other team sit on your gy and blend everything that would dare spawn, dragging out the game to mindlessly farm HKs.

[Mafic]

i like the template, it kinda solved the hardcore gy camping you would see in very one sided games.

in previous expansions you would occasionally have the other team sit on your gy and blend everything that would dare spawn, dragging out the game to mindlessly farm HKs.

GY camping still happens.

Instead the players are wearing mythic + gear instead of PVP gear because mythic + gear has higher ilevel which translates to a higher principal of war buff.

[Caolela]

Templates were an UN-mitigated disaster. Blizz did it as another way to profit, along with the rest of the Legion scheme. That's all they fucking think of now...it isn't about the game or the players.

The end.

[Kanariya]

The ultimate reward from vanilla-WoD has been the renown you receive from being a highly skilled player. That's really all we need.

Anyone claiming that skill was the ultimate end-all be-all prior to Legion is an outright liar and just wants gear back because they don't have enough skill to survive without it.

Removing gear as a factor (we know it's not completely removed) was the best change to PvP in this game's history. The amount of salt we see now is because a lot of people have realized they're not as skilled as they once thought, and the handicap of gear (and lack of on their opponents) to carry them is no longer present.

Now of course there is plenty of room for improvement with the template system, such as enabling stat customization and allowing them to function outside of instances, but templates have been a great start.

As for real improvements, it's time to end melee's absurd skill-free domination, allow ranged to actually kite without being immediately shut down, and make mana a limiting factor for healers to prevent indefinite healing. I'd also love to see a massive reversal on pruning. That affects both game modes.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Remove templates and bring back pvp trinket choice.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone claiming that skill was the ultimate end-all be-all prior to Legion is an outright liar and just wants gear back because they don't have enough skill to survive without it.

Removing gear as a factor (we know it's not completely removed) was the best change to PvP in this game's history. The amount of salt we see now is because a lot of people have realized they're not as skilled as they once thought, and the handicap of gear (and lack of on their opponents) to carry them is no longer present.

Now of course there is plenty of room for improvement with the template system, such as enabling stat customization and allowing them to function outside of instances, but templates have been a great start.

As for real improvements, it's time to end melee's absurd skill-free domination, allow ranged to actually kite without being immediately shut down, and make mana a limiting factor for healers to prevent indefinite healing. I'd also love to see a massive reversal on pruning. That affects both game modes.

I want templates gone they remove choice. I also want them to make secondary stats matter more for pvp. A fire mage might want to run mastery/versatility for a dot cleave and crit/haste for a single target burst comp. Wow isn't an apm heavy game it's one about choices. If you remove to much than the game because the mindless train wreck it is now.

I also hope they tone done buff protection one shaman heal and you need to cut through 2-3 buffs to take a pyro blast. You get enormous benefit from being next to a healer already why make it more mindless than it already was.

[khazlol]

GY camping still happens.

Instead the players are wearing mythic + gear instead of PVP gear because mythic + gear has higher ilevel which translates to a higher principal of war buff.

i don't really see it, sure they push up to the GY sometimes but i have not seen anyone actually farm it the way they used to.

and ilvl is what 1% per 10 ilvls?

[docterfreeze]

Anyone claiming that skill was the ultimate end-all be-all prior to Legion is an outright liar and just wants gear back because they don't have enough skill to survive without it.

Removing gear as a factor (we know it's not completely removed) was the best change to PvP in this game's history. The amount of salt we see now is because a lot of people have realized they're not as skilled as they once thought, and the handicap of gear (and lack of on their opponents) to carry them is no longer present.

People who cared about skill based PvP wanted gear to be gone, including myself. However, what they did in legion was lower the skill cap immensely along with "removing" gear. This means any retard with a keyboard can play their class optimally. I don't care that gear is gone I care that skill is gone.

In addition, gear alone couldn't carry you to 2k+, it didn't autmatically make you a 1vX god. You still had to be good to do any of that.

[msdos]

Um, lets see: remove the ability for the player to phase out if they just killed someone who is PVP flagged. Remove the draconian rez timer that builds up to 3 minutes. Give all the classes the ability to see enemy players on the minimap if flagged for PVP. On your first death in world PVP, you should be teleported to your corpse so you can have a chance for revenge. Stop making zones with no flight or stop making zones with no graveyard flight. Stop with this graveyard run back BULLSH**.

Basically actually design PVP in the world and don't just let whatever you do spill out into the world and just go, "oh well".

The amount of times I've been ganked with my back turned with no chance of revenge is like 100%. It's such bad design, possibly the worst. It's almost so bad that I wish you could just pull the last player to killing blow you into a phased 1v1 duel no matter where you both are. People get away with too much unfair BS in this game.
At least in the past you could rez and have a chance of finding them in the same zone somewhere. Now, if you get ganked, they instantly phase away or just run to the teleporter 100 yards away and you never see them ever again.
I remember running into the same people in vanilla, even though the world was vast. Remember bubble hearthing? That was a thing because there wasn't a teleport/portal every 100 yards or a button for you to press that instantly ports you.

Thanks cross realm, thanks phasing, thanks teleporting and whistles and casual way of life, thanks all this new tech that secretly destroyed world PVP behind the scenes in the name of "quality of life".

[Carrastealth]

5. Make use of the older World PVP zones. Currently we have Wintergrasp, Too Barad, and Ashran that are all currently useless in terms of current rewards. Blizzard wants to keep the zones in their respective old level brackets containing whatever old rewards they have. So my solution to making them useful again is just having queueable versions of these zones that are scaled to level 120 with updated rewards. In other words if I want to access level 80 wintergrasp I still just go there the same exact way but instead there’s just an option for a level 120 version now. In this queue it could be separated in a playlist called large scale battles that have people queue in 40 player+ zones. This would essentially add in Isle of Conquest, and Alterac Valley in this playlist too allowing people who want to participate in PVP zones with PVE elements to have own playlist. I say because people in this playlist would expect to play longer games this would be the perfect time to introduce an old school AV mode where mob health is greatly increased that way we don’t have the stupidly quick rush to Stormpike or Drekthar.


Agree wholeheartedly with this. Make the rewards matter as well when it comes to these places. Put them on a timer and such as well where people have to go and do it. Stuff like that starts building server communities again as opposed to just queueing and likely never seeing the people with bg with ever again for the most part.


When it comes to 'gameplay' ideas, I think that the majority of the ideas to improving PvP should also be primarily focused on the gamestyle of the pvp areas in general as well as making them more enticing to play, or rather encouraging more objective oriented playstyles as opposed to getting virtually the same reward, running around and doing nothing as you would if you were going around actively trying to win the battleground and doing objective based things to do so.


I think one of the main reasons bg play has fallen off outside of RBG, is because quite simply the rewards aren't great enough, because you'll finish the game with pretty much the same amount of honor as someone who didn't give a darn about actually winning or the objectives.

Increase the rewards of doing pvp in bgs as well as increasing the honor gained and rewards from that honor by doing objectives and perhaps bgs will encourage more competitive play in general outside of RBGs.

I think the biggest thing that the game has gotten away from as far as pvp goes, is rewarding the players for skilled play, something like a ranking system has been mentioned before or a title you could walk around with as incentive for players(which you can get in RBGs). I do agree with this idea to an extent but I think that it doesn't fix the main issue with PvP in wow nowadays.

The Battlegrounds just aren't fun anymore.

Now one of the most social times I ever had in the original WoW was the battleground chat, some good, and some not so good... but either way it required communication in the chat and at least some semblence of strategy, and people had to listen, you didn't have so many people running around with a "BG Chat is for everyone except me" mentality and the game felt more social as a whole.

But you walk into a battleground nowadays, barely anyone talks unless it's complaints, and the most commonly accepted strategy was "ZERG AND WE WIN". Back in Vanilla, zerging was a last resort, and often times ended with your group getting their face stomped in and you needing to regroup and find an actual strategy because players could adapt to the simple strategy.

Nowadays? Not so much. Queue up for Alterac Valley and try to spell out as many strategies you want, 95% of your team will always try to zerg the other side for a quick win while leaving graveyard unguarded and care not for any actual skill or strategy that comes with what it used to take to win it. And that.. is what my biggest change or feel to battlegrounds entails.

First, they need to bring back actual honor, but within a system that acts as both a ranking system and gear incentive. More on that later.


In order to increase your honor, I think that they should add objective based points of emphasis within battlegrounds that can give you an increase in honor. Not a minor increase like "ooh an extra 50 points of honor", I'm talking about hundreds, to thousands. But they should also enable honor to be lost, depending on how a player is deciding to go about the level. Again, more detail on that later.

But imagine a system in place in bg like Alterac Valley that punishes players for "just trying to zerg" and have them not getting a significant amount of extra honor than they would if they played the game based around strategy and objectives in order to succeed.

Award significantly more honor points for playing defense on flags(not turtling). Taking down certain towers. Killing certain NPCs. Award more points for capping and re-capping and defending areas(again not in a turtle), or killing off intruders that are trying to take the flag, or have taken, but you have reclaimed.

But more importantly, give "Achievement Names" for these situations that will flash on the screen and award the player an extra honor boost for doing such things.

You know like those titles or things that would pop up and go "Killed 5 Flag Carriers in a single Warsong Gulch" or "Successfully have 3 Flag Defenses in Arathi Basin" or "Successfully reclaim 2 flags in Arathi Basin"? Yeah, make those kind of Achievements possible during every game, and make it reward a lot of honor as a result.

In addition you can also have rewards that come in the form of IN GAME BUFFS that will happen to said players after a certain extent of doing these objective based things. And these buffs will depend on whether or not you're playing something of a support role in that bg, playing defense or tank, or playing a main role in general, etc.

Encourage people to take advantage of their classes abilities and roles in bgs and reward them for doing such in the form of massive honor and ranking boost.

Also discourage people "camping graveyards and pretty much afk'ing" while doing nothing, or just primarily going for honor kills but never advancing. And if you've ever been in a bg like like Warsong Gulch or Twin Peaks where the majority of people are just fighting in the middle on your team while maybe one or two people are actually going after the flag, you understand what I mean.

Take honor away OR reward less honor for these people that don't really care about winning or adding anything to the game other than trying to farm honor kills because win or lose they get essentially the same amount of honor regardless of what they contribute.


I guarantee if the people that camped mid in Warsong Gulch and did nothing else for the game ended the game with just 100 honor or points/prizes and the people that actually did the objectives, and played the way it was supposed to be played wound up getting 600-700 honor.. THAT would change the mentality of the player base.

Because then it would be rewarding players for playing the RIGHT way. Is this system infallible? No, but I think that it's a start to get the discussion rolling. So it may not start with fixing arenas, but it may start with fixing bgs, and if you give those objective based rewards "SIGNIFICANTLY" to the players that do them, to the extent where there is a major difference in honor and gear rewards gained by someone who played the the bg the right way, and someone who didn't, it would incentivize players to be more involved in how the bg is played in general.


Because at the end of the day we all want rewards, and to be essentially told "good job" for doing well in BGs in the form or honor, a shiny, or both. But this "everyone has the same chance of getting everything no matter what you do, because only wins/losses matter at the end." is one of the biggest problems. If a player has in their mind "If we win this bg I'm getting 700 honor, and if we lose I'm getting around 300 honor, give or take an extra 50-100 here or there if I do anything aside from farm." then they aren't going to be that invested in the outcome, because there's no reason to be. Because the rewards you can get from BGs are staggeringly low, and take much more time to obtain than running a simple 2v2 or 3v3 in arena.

You have to make playing a 10-15 minute BG feel worth going through, and you have to make the rewards worth it in the end to the people that do. Otherwise you'll have a situation where maybe 10% of the people are actually really invested, but the majority are interested in farming kills, and the others are half and half but looking for an excuse to stop being invested and just derp around the level till it mercifully ends.


The "gear system reward" for bgs can help and keep people engaged. It's just about how it should be utilized and how great the reward should be. If the people playing the bg correctly and doing the objectives are getting more honor/ranking and gear than the people who are just derping around inside of it, then the rewards suddenly start to matter. Because it effects your gear and performance in game. Which people want to feel like they're progressing in.

This "prestige" system, Cartoonz once mentioned I think could work both in arena and in bgs.

Using what I'd talked about earlier, in theory there is always a chance that someone does all the objective based stuff in bgs and gears up with better items and does so faster because of it. But maybe they just get up to the max level and then go into bgs then and just mess around and do nothing? Because hey, they got their gear now. Why should they help you?

Now there of course would be some players that came up, playing it the correct way and objective based and will still do so even when they are geared out of their mind, but there will be a select few that will say "Well I'm geared now, and I can arena, so I really don't have to worry about bgs anymore."

How to solve that?

Well... now comes the most controversial and admittedly not as ironed out idea/theory.

Remember when I said earlier that the "honor could be taken away"? I go back to the idea of "punishing" players for derping around and doing nothing in bgs but farming. Implement a system where you do get prestige and ranking when you do objective based things, but when you don't do objective based things or play a bg the right way, you suffer a loss to both your prestige and ranking(or honor).

If you do not, and I stress, do not play a bg the right way AND your team loses, then you suffer even more of a loss, and eventually given enough prestige and honor loss, you will also lose your ranking. Thus making the gear you got unable to be worn and a lesser version sent in the mail to you with significant nerfs to it. OR you gear dropping a level.

Imagine gaining a PvP set and in the game there's current sets in the game that basically have something like "Upgrade 0/10" or something on it. Imagine that it works the same way, your gear increases itself depending on your Prestige ranking from 1-10, so when you get to 10-10 you basically have the gear at it's max capacity. If you lose that Prestige it could drop down to 9 or 8 or worse, etc.

That's right, we're making all that gear you worked hard for, Rank based, and we also make that rank able to be lost.

Now for noobs and people at the lowest of rankings, as in people just getting started in the bgs, they will suffer less of a loss because we all make mistakes. But at a certain rank you'll be expected to have a grasp upon how to play the bg properly, because obviously you would have to if you played the bg enough to rank up in the first place. So past that point, you're expected to play at a certain level of understanding as far as the BG goes, and thus you losing your rank if you decide to derp around, is more justified.

For example, you know people that walk around in 950 gear but can't do basic mechanics in a pve raid? Well in PvP that kind of action would be punished. If you're walking around in Prestige 10/10 gear you should know what you're doing at least as far as the objectives of the BGs go, so if you derp around and do nothing you could risk losing that or at least it being downgraded.

The reason you make your gear you get from bgs rank based is because it takes away the 'temptation' to just go into a bg and derp around just cause you got all the gear now.

However and this is important, the same system does NOT punish you for trying to do objectives and the team losing. It will not result in, or multiply a loss. It will only do that if you WEREN'T doing objectives or playing it right, and the team lost.

This means that players that are still trying to do the right things despite being on a bad team will still get rewarded for their efforts. They won't get rewarded as much as the winning team obviously but they will be rewarded to the extent to incentivize them to keep playing the way they have been.




I think a system like that in bgs would be a major start towards making PvP fun again, or at least feel like it has a point and making it feel "worth it" for the effort you put into it. You're rewarded for playing a bg the right way, and those that don't aren't rewarded as extensively and others are punished or could even have their rankings drop.

I think that's the first step in the right direction to be honest, and it should start in BGs. You make the BGs worth playing again like that and have great rewards for doing them correctly and you'll have a starting point to build upon and some people will start to come back.

The thought of playing an objective based Alterac Valley where people are actually rewarded for doing things like turning in metal, stealing mounts, resurrecting the Alterac Valley monster, claiming mines, and defending/taking down Towers? While people that try to zerg and do nothing else, and people that run into the Boss Room only to get one shot either lose honor or receive significantly less honor than those that played it correctly at the end would not only feel worth it for those that try to play the game the right way, but it would discourage people from NOT playing with strategy and skill and instead trying to faceroll all the time.

Thus it makes the rewards and honor actually reflect the skillgap, which is one of the biggest things that has been missing from WoW PvP for quite some time.

I'll probably iron it out a bit more later, but that's pretty much the "Alpha" idea.

[Deleted]

In this xpac Blizzard made what are imo both the best and the worst changes they have made to pvp.

The best was pvp templates, now pvp is mostly based on skill not how much you have grinded, but with a small % difference based on ilv so gear isn't totally pointless.

The worst is how bad the gear is compared to pve, there is no sense of progression. Yes I know gear does not matter in pvp really but it's still nice to feel more powerful just for the 'cool' factor, or in open world or pve content. However it is MUCH harder to get a piece of gear from pvp with the same ilv as from pve, e.g. heroic antorus (moderately difficult) gives gear of the ilv as the rewards for 2.4k+ pvp (very difficult). What's more pvp gear usually has terrible stats except for tanks and one or two outlier dps spcs (90% of the time it has vers).

[Crushkid12]

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I definitely agree with most of the things you said. Providing rewards through skills in battlegrounds that you can acheive every game would most definitely make them a lot more engaging. It would also promote people to actually play their best rather than being useless and present only for the end of game reward. I think annoucing to the whole battleground "Johnnyawesome Killed 5 flag carriers" and them getting a huge honor boost would promote people to not only want to get higher up on scoreboard but entice people because they know they are getting a worthwhile reward.

[Deleted]

Sounds good, I like the idea of open world pvp currency like bloody coins where you can buy cool transmog sets or mounts and add pvp hubs in Stranglethorn for example or old hillsbrad foothills