How to reinvigorate BGs for casuals and hardcore WoW Players (paper/long post)

[SirBeef]

Truth be told, many people who haven't PvP'd for the last 10+ years aren't going to be getting into it at any point, for a few reasons:

1) The knowledge required to actually PvP successfully without a huge gear gap is immense. You need to know many things about many classes, and what to do in each comp. You can learn it, but most people aren't sticking around long enough to do so, for this reason (see 2)

2) It's a constant state of CC/Stun/Root in Arenas, and even in BG's. Players simply don't enjoy the game when CC/Stun is the name of the game. I can't count how many times I've heard "I'd like to actually PLAY MY CHARACTER" in PvP.

It's a disaster from the ground up, honestly.

Make all cc/snares/stuns/roots/fears/MC and what not share the same DR no mater what spell or what player uses it. If it doesn't work that way now it should, if it is supposed to I don't buy it because in BGs I am constantly stun locked into fears, into MC, back to stun locks back to fears for significant amounts of time low and high levels.

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The game isn't about skill there legit differences between classes and stuff.... Like wow is innately unbalanced. Unbalanced and unskillful is wow natural state hard counter exist in this game dude. There are some 1v1 match ups that are just unfair baseline before gear is even an issue. Wow and skill don't belong together outside of 3v3 honestly.

I know classes are not 1:1 balanced. It never was nor supposed to be and that is fine. My point still stands. It isn't about fair play that most PvPers want. They just want to dominate by having better gear. 1:1 will never be balanced, but everything else would benefit from it outside of the group mentioned.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Make all cc/snares/stuns/roots/fears/MC and what not share the same DR no mater what spell or what player uses it. If it doesn't work that way now it should, if it is supposed to I don't buy it because in BGs I am constantly stun locked into fears, into MC, back to stun locks back to fears for significant amounts of time low and high levels.

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I know classes are not 1:1 balanced. It never was nor supposed to be and that is fine. My point still stands. It isn't about fair play that most PvPers want. They just want to dominate by having better gear. 1:1 will never be balanced, but everything else would benefit from it outside of the group mentioned.

3v3 isn't balance either nothing in this game pvp wise is... I want customization to matter. I want to be different than another mage and not run the same build 90% of the time like in legion. Gems, secondary stats, and trinkets should matter. Gear can also help classes deal with imbalances.

[SirBeef]

3v3 isn't balance either nothing in this game pvp wise is...

I never claimed it was. I just said it would be better with normalized gear.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I never claimed it was. I just said it would be better with normalized gear.

It wasn't in legion the game was boring. Trinkets and secondary stats make gear fun just stop the scaling at @445.

[Usagi Senshi]

Its quite funny, FFXIV has a superior arena system (equal gear, pick and choose limited CDs/stuns/heals, and no perma death until coins are exhausted) that I actually enjoy playing but not a good reward system to go along with it.

Blizzard rather stay stagnant and stubborn and wank to PVE shitlords all day.

"Ranked BGs have been a failure for 10 years but lets stick with it!" instead of properly developing a 1-5 player queue version of it that rewards accordingly based on time, objectives, kills, and skill.

[Nikeyla]

Here's how BGs as a casual looks like right now:

*gets destroyed by people with gigantic stacks of corruption effects*
*looks at preserved contaminant prices*
*conclude that it'll be faster to wait for shadowlands or classic TBC than to grind this garbage*
*uninstall game*

I wish this was only bg issue... I just resubbed after almost 2 years and I cba doing daily quests for weeks as my end game to get on a viable level of gear. The only reason I resubbed is that I was desperately bored, but I dont think it is THIS level of desperation. Dunno what happened to this game. The grind is more insane than the grind games, which are made for the grinding. I wouldnt mind the grind, but the difference between the good gear and average gear is just unreasonably high.

[SirBeef]

It wasn't in legion the game was boring. Trinkets and secondary stats make gear fun just stop the scaling at @445.

The thread is about invigorating it for casuals. As someone who hasn't seriously PvPd since Vanilla, knowing I had a fair shake against the enemy, outside of the counter classes/specs, I would consider PvPing again. Outside of quick leveling in between dungeon queues and questing, casual players are at such a disadvantage even in random BGs.

I understand the more you participate the more you are rewarded, but PvP should be all about skill. As a Mythic raider, who's raid team needs to overgear the last half to stand a chance, I feel the same way about about mythic raiding. It should only reward cosmetics and only the truly skilled should progress. I'd be totally fine with that even knowing it would effectively lock us out of 50% of mythic raida.

[crakerjack]

I lost interest after Wotlk because they stopped awarding better players with better gear. If you didn't have X rating, then you didn't get the latest PvP gear. Can't get 1800 rating? Well you don't get t1 PvP weapons. You don't have 2k rating? Well you don't get the shoulders for the current PvP set. Those were my main motivations to PvP back in the day, so when they removed that stuff in cataclysm, I lost all interest in PvPing. I never was an amazing PvPer, but I did play around 2100 mmr and had full wrathful w/ t1 weapons back in the day.

[Ragnarohk]

Standardized gear and stats upon entering. Fixed.

The problem is the "hardcore PVPers" are the only ones who would genuinely hate it, solely because most of them aren't actually any good, but instead rely on their gear. When everyone's equal, they rage and rage when they discover "casuals" are just as good as they are, if not better.

They really can't handle fair play.

This, or make gear content exclusive. PvP gear is trash in PvE and the other way around.

[Schattenlied]

I limited the group size to three, since the most popular form of PVP is 3v3 arena.

Well that's just false. It may be the most popular form of RANKED PvP, but far more people participate in random battlegrounds than any kind of arena.


You want to know how to reinvigorate BGs in this game?

Scrap this massive wall of text, it's all basically irrelevant.

Make the PvP gameplay in general fun again. Literally all that's required... PvP participation in all forms took a huge nosedive in Legion when they pruned the ever-living shit out of the classes and revamped every spec into things they never were for essentially no reason. Start there.

And then maybe don't balance all PvP around 3v3 arena, which, as I already said, is a minority compared to BGs. Balance should be focused on the most played form of content, not their shitty attempt at an e-sport.

[Dunkelzahn]

It does equalizing gear isn't the problem. You can have equal gear but when skill means nothing that doesn't fix the problem.

Sorry, gear (which includes enchantments, flasks, and everything else in this context) is the main issue.

Also what fair fight between matchmaking and class differences wow is innately unfair. Some classes benefit from combos and other things more as well.

I can 100-0 some classes but other have immunities which makes them harder to kill with a healer. Others are good at aoe burst or single target. Gearing like talents, essences, and other mechanics can help certain classes deal shortcomings.

It's almost like Blizzard works towards a rock-paper-scissor style of class design or something. Go figure.

Also arenas and dueling are trash and should die in a fire.

[OFiveNine]

Bring back Honour and Conquest bendors boom BGs reinvigorated for everyone /thread

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

The thread is about invigorating it for casuals. As someone who hasn't seriously PvPd since Vanilla, knowing I had a fair shake against the enemy, outside of the counter classes/specs, I would consider PvPing again. Outside of quick leveling in between dungeon queues and questing, casual players are at such a disadvantage even in random BGs.

I understand the more you participate the more you are rewarded, but PvP should be all about skill. As a Mythic raider, who's raid team needs to overgear the last half to stand a chance, I feel the same way about about mythic raiding. It should only reward cosmetics and only the truly skilled should progress. I'd be totally fine with that even knowing it would effectively lock us out of 50% of mythic raida.

Knowing I have a fair shake means nothing if the gameplay is garbage. It's not as long as different classes exist and combinations.

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Sorry, gear (which includes enchantments, flasks, and everything else in this context) is the main issue.


It's almost like Blizzard works towards a rock-paper-scissor style of class design or something. Go figure.

Also arenas and dueling are trash and should die in a fire.

It's the hyper team based nature of the game that makes me not want to play. Also the reward structure is really poorly thought out. The only way to get gear is winning battlegrounds but gear and match making are randomized. How does that make sense? Why would I just not go to do mythic+ and ignore battlegrounds completely... There is no casual modes in this game just sweats.

Individual players can carry battlegrounds like in mist of pandaria and other expansions... There is nothing fun about auto loses that you have no control over in casual modes. It gives me no reason to want to improve.

Every blizzard game is heavily team based and they're all dying... Fortnite and other games that aren't or have casual modes are growing.

[Clozer]

Sorry, gear (which includes enchantments, flasks, and everything else in this context) is the main issue.


It's almost like Blizzard works towards a rock-paper-scissor style of class design or something. Go figure.

Also arenas and dueling are trash and should die in a fire.

Without gear in PvP there will be no character progression for anyone who's only doing pvp. And for most people character progression is a very big part of why they play. Therefore making gear useless in pvp is a no-go. Simple fact.

You now will argue again with your blablabla pvp is all bout skill blablabla, meanwhile you want to remove arena, the best place to show off your pvp skills in WoW. What a joke.

[Misuteri]

I hated arena with a passion, always will.

I watch 3’s videos now and it’s stun, lockout, stun, silence, stun, incapacitate. There’s no fun in that, period. That’s why I was always 10 wins and done during conquest/honor. Take 2 DPS blow all CD’s hope to win in 50 seconds or less if not.. next.

You should never be able to get top gear from random BG’s but there has to be a better way from going to questing greens and blues to full conquest gear. They tried it with crafting but even then you were so far behind you were looking at a few days/week of painful playing.

I’m of the mindset of several others, equal gearing at max level for random battlegrounds. Arena or rated BG’s sure, take advantage of what you earned.

[Luxeley]

Some of your premises are not only wrong, but dead wrong. Granted, the overall composition of BGs are different based on Region, but still...fundamentally speaking if your premise is off then everything is off and your premise is wrong. Bg participation is significantly higher than arena participation as far as sheer numbers go. Ion Hazzicluless confirmed this in a recent interview. As far as you remedies, they're terrible. You completely lost me in the end when you state you want "normalized" gear for normal Bgs but not rated. That's just plain dumb. I'm 100% in favor of increasing BG participation in WOW, regardless of whether BGs are doing well or not. But if Blizzard did half of what you propose, they'd kill BGs. I understand you want class balance and a greater level of competition in BGs. But the reality is, class balance just "DOES NOT" exist in WOW, it never had, it never will. This same exact argument existed back in Cata and guess what, it still exists. Not much has changed in 10 years. OP specs, Pve trinkets and mechanisms wreak havoc and run rampant in BGs.

The best way to fix BGs and pvp in general is a lot simpler. It starts by balancing Pvp around a new competitive 6vs6 objective based mode. Currently Pvp is for lack of a better word "balanced" around 3s and pve is more or less balanced around M+ If you balance a new pvp mode around 6vs6 or even 5vs5, you'll be on the same page with Pve and things will be a lot smoother, not perfect but smoother. Add in a solo queue option with a fair rating system and a better state of balance will take shape and participation should go up. I like the idea of normalized gear, which definitely puts me in the minority, but then again I think Blizzard implemented everything wrong in Legion (as usual). I'd implement something similar to what GW2 does, it's normalized gear but there is still a decent amount of customization involved. Basically everyone picks from the same pool of trinkets and enchants. That means you can stack power, dmg reduction, healing, AOE dmg, single target dmg, speed, secondary stats, the list is pretty much endless. If you find yourself un-effective, it's a matter of class design (which can be diagnosed a lot easier with normalized gear and fixed) but other than that, if you're still ineffective then you just specced wrong.

[Dunkelzahn]

Without gear in PvP there will be no character progression for anyone who's only doing pvp.

You mean like how there isn't any character progression for anyone who's only doing pet battles? Boo-fucking-hoo if you don't do anything else in WoW other than PVP. You get to go in knowing you're at no disadvantage for only doing PVP, just like everyone else knows they're at no disadvantage.

Also, I said nothing about there being no rewards.

And for most people character progression is a very big part of why they play. Therefore making gear useless in pvp is a no-go. Simple fact.

I think you need to learn what a fact is.

You now will argue again with your blablabla pvp is all bout skill blablabla, meanwhile you want to remove arena, the best place to show off your pvp skills in WoW. What a joke.

Ah, I get it. You're one of the people I was talking about who can only win at PVP by being ridiculously outgeared. Everything makes sense now. Opinion duly (not) noted.

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It's the hyper team based nature of the game that makes me not want to play. Also the reward structure is really poorly thought out. The only way to get gear is winning battlegrounds but gear and match making are randomized. How does that make sense? Why would I just not go to do mythic+ and ignore battlegrounds completely... There is no casual modes in this game just sweats.

Individual players can carry battlegrounds like in mist of pandaria and other expansions... There is nothing fun about auto loses that you have no control over in casual modes. It gives me no reason to want to improve.

Every blizzard game is heavily team based and they're all dying... Fortnite and other games that aren't or have casual modes are growing.

Remind me why any of this has anything to do with countering what I've said?

[Clozer]

You mean like how there isn't any character progression for anyone who's only doing pet battles? Boo-fucking-hoo if you don't do anything else in WoW other than PVP. You get to go in knowing you're at no disadvantage for only doing PVP, just like everyone else knows they're at no disadvantage.

Also, I said nothing about there being no rewards.


I think you need to learn what a fact is.


Ah, I get it. You're one of the people I was talking about who can only win at PVP by being ridiculously outgeared. Everything makes sense now. Opinion duly (not) noted.

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Remind me why any of this has anything to do with countering what I've said?

Man, were some players really mean to you in your first bg?

Since you don't do any actual pvp content your opinion is pretty pointless. It's like talking with a peasant about quantum mechanics. You literally have no idea what you are talking about.

[Whitepaw]

I almost exclusively PvP in random BGs and some world PvP, my life doesn’t allow me to schedule around doing rated PvP or raiding. I always have Warmode turned on. I have around 132,000 honour kills and have started doing some PvP again to reach 250,000 honour kills. I have achieved Battlemaster and Justicar. So, since I don’t do rated PvP, most will call me casual.

But I really enjoy PvP right now! I dislike the corruption effects, especially the active procs, but PvP-ing as a Feral with an ilvl of around 445 is quite fun. We don’t have PvP sets with bonuses anymore, but we do have Azerite abilities on our armour, and some of them apply some cool effects, increasing both offensive and defensive capabilities. The same can be said of our Essences.

The problem with PvP is the reward system in my opinion. I like to gain upgrades to improve my performance, so I’ve worked a lot on my Essences to get the exact effects that I want. And I mostly play some really long-term goals, like Battlemaster (took several years, since I PuG’ed almost all the achievements for that meta-achievement) or Justicar (which I obtained before it became easier to farm rep with the nelf faction in WSG), but most people don’t think like I do. They want to get rewards at somewhat regular intervals and at a frequent rate.

I think that we should have another reward system for PvP than we do today. Right now, you can basically be carried in a PvE raid and get awesome gear for doing PvP. That’s actually a great system in my opinion! But you should be able to get better than ilvl 445 gear when PuG’ing BGs. Right now, I earn around 250 conquest per day, so I get 3-4 PvP items every week. But they are not upgrades, since they stop at ilvl 445.

Back in TBC, it was possible to earn a lot of epic gear from doing rather casual PvP. That was fun, a lot of players did that (I didn’t, since back then I actually raided a lot - but the game thrived since people liked that system). We should go back to that kind of system.

Oh, and before we call the sky is falling on PvP in WoW: Warmode has been AMAZING! The invasions, the Battle for Nazjatar PvP event - they’re all a lot of fun and they add needed depth to a game called World of Warcraft. You know, WARcraft - instead of just running around not trying to kill other players. With Warmode, you get that extra fun aspect in a very flexible toggle. And just to be clear: I’m Alliance on a server with Horde dominance, but I still enjoy this aspect a lot. It adds unpredictability to my gameplay, it immerses me in WoW. I feel more engaged in a more complete experience, instead of playing a game on rails.

[koppi]

I almost exclusively PvP in random BGs and some world PvP, my life doesn’t allow me to schedule around doing rated PvP or raiding. I always have Warmode turned on. I have around 132,000 honour kills and have started doing some PvP again to reach 250,000 honour kills. I have achieved Battlemaster and Justicar. So, since I don’t do rated PvP, most will call me casual.

But I really enjoy PvP right now! I dislike the corruption effects, especially the active procs, but PvP-ing as a Feral with an ilvl of around 445 is quite fun. We don’t have PvP sets with bonuses anymore, but we do have Azerite abilities on our armour, and some of them apply some cool effects, increasing both offensive and defensive capabilities. The same can be said of our Essences.

The problem with PvP is the reward system in my opinion. I like to gain upgrades to improve my performance, so I’ve worked a lot on my Essences to get the exact effects that I want. And I mostly play some really long-term goals, like Battlemaster (took several years, since I PuG’ed almost all the achievements for that meta-achievement) or Justicar (which I obtained before it became easier to farm rep with the nelf faction in WSG), but most people don’t think like I do. They want to get rewards at somewhat regular intervals and at a frequent rate.

I think that we should have another reward system for PvP than we do today. Right now, you can basically be carried in a PvE raid and get awesome gear for doing PvP. That’s actually a great system in my opinion! But you should be able to get better than ilvl 445 gear when PuG’ing BGs. Right now, I earn around 250 conquest per day, so I get 3-4 PvP items every week. But they are not upgrades, since they stop at ilvl 445.

Back in TBC, it was possible to earn a lot of epic gear from doing rather casual PvP. That was fun, a lot of players did that (I didn’t, since back then I actually rated a lot - but the game thrived since people liked that system). We should go back to that kind of system.

Oh, and before we call the sky is falling on PvP in WoW: Warmode has been AMAZING! The invasions, the Battle for Nazjatar PvP event - they’re all a lot of fun and they add needed depth to a game called World of Warcraft. You know, WARcraft - instead of just running around not trying to kill other players. With Warmode, you get that extra fun aspect in a very flexible toggle. And just to be clear: I’m Alliance on a server with with Horde dominance, but I still enjoy this aspect a lot. It adds unpredictability to my gameplay, it immerses me in WoW. I feel more engaged in a more complete experience, instead of playing a game on rails.

totally agree with you, i have it the same, except i do not have battlemaster yet. (Damn the perfect storm!)