Shadowlands PvP Dev Interview with Brian Holinka

[Stoy]

Shadowlands PvP Dev Interview with Brian Holinka
Venruki sat down today with Brian Holinka to discuss all things PvP in Shadowlands. Here are the highlights, and be sure to watch the video for the full interview!

• PvP Talents
  
  • In order for PvP to feel fresh, the meta has to change from time to time, and that also means classes have to change with new expansions.
  • Design and class changes are mostly done in new expansions, and it felt like a good time to address PvP talents.
  • The goal was to address talents that felt mandatory and balance issues caused by them.
• Healing Reduction
  
  • Healing reduction is a way to make the game more offensive than defensive.
  • The goal was to increase the effect of sustain on targets.
  • The average time frame of 3's shoot to be 3 to 5 minutes.
• Off-Spec Healers
  
  • Off-healing should feel like a cool part of your defensive toolkit, but should be balanced.
  • Off-healers should not be able to shut down a kill window while a healer is locked down. This is something that they want to address.
  • Arena should be more lethal rather than non-lethal.
  • Hybrid healing is going to have a balance pass that is PvP specific soon.
• PvP Gear
  
  • The team has to design a gearing system in PvP that attracts players while also making sure it doesn't have to be the primary system.
  • Holinka is happy to be back in a place where people hang around the PvP vendors while queing for battlegrounds.
  • Gearing in PvP becomes more of an issue as a season progresses as you fall behind in conquest.
• Earning Conquest
  
  • Having a way to catch up is something that should be addressed soon after 9.1
  • An amp to your conquest earn is something they have been discussing if you fall behind, mainly a small boost to get you started.
  • It is not smart to totally discredit the power progression of players, so it's a fine line.
  • Having increased conquest acquisition on weekends is a suggested addition.
• Solo Queue
  
  • Arena compositions is the main issue with having solo queues. It would be really unfair for players with the same rating to queue into a good comp vs a bad one.
  • Solo queue is something that could be tried out in the brawl system first.
  • They understand that some people just want to arena and skirmishes don't do it for some people.
  • Letting players browse groups while listed is one of the solutions to find groups faster.
  • They are not dismissing that it is a problem and are genuinely looking for solutions.
• Rating Decay
  
  • Holinka does not like the idea of rating decay, as people shouldn't be punished for life outside of the game keeping them from playing.
• Burst
  
  • A solution to one-shots is addressing the number of cooldowns used in PvP.
  • Ultimately the game cannot be designed around these one-shot mechanics as the rest of the time you would feel like a wet noodle.
• Mind Control Bug
  
  • The team is aware of it and working really hard to find a fix, but it is proving difficult to replicate and address it.

[korijenkins]

Wonder if they'll ever address healers healing other healers in BGs, which makes PvP completely unfun and requires coordination to deal with (which you often don't have in PUGs)

PvP should never feel "fresh" it should be fun. It's not fun because they make pointless changes to talents and gearing systems constantly.

[Schmeebs]

Wonder if they'll ever address healers healing other healers in BGs, which makes PvP completely unfun and requires coordination to deal with (which you often don't have in PUGs

I've seen a lot of bad hot takes about pvp, but this might actually be the worst, bgs is team fights, focus healers, cc healers, but making it so beakers can't heal healers... That would be broken as hell.

[schwarzkopf]

PvP is too binary - a stealthed rogue will always kill my mage, whilst other classes have classes that they can't defend against.

Right now for many classes PvP is pretty much just MTG with one card each.

[Relapses]

I've seen a lot of bad hot takes about pvp, but this might actually be the worst, bgs is team fights, focus healers, cc healers, but making it so beakers can't heal healers... That would be broken as hell.

Wait, you mean a player has an unreasonable suggestion for the developers? Not on MMO-C! Only the best ideas are discussed here! We're all certified game developers with multi-dollar salaries!

[Stardrift]

Wonder when people will start pressing them for actual PvP content.

It doesn't matter how often you repaint it, it's still the same old stale nonsense we've been doing for a decade now. How about some new BGs with new modes? A new PvP zone? What the fuck lol

- - - Updated - - -

PvP is too binary - a stealthed rogue will always kill my mage, whilst other classes have classes that they can't defend against.

Right now for many classes PvP is pretty much just MTG with one card each.

It's been like this forever. It's almost as if.. PvP has no place in a game with classes and PvE elements?? Shit needs to move to a seperate client.

[willtron]

Haven't watched it, dont care I stand by what I've always said. Arena isn't Wow. Wow isn't an esport. Stop trying to make it happen, it makes the game worse.

Give more BGs. Preferably big ones, with side objectives.

[Stormspellz]

just off the cliff notes its another empty pr talking head interview that will lead to nothing.

[TheLucky1]

Haven't watched it, dont care I stand by what I've always said. Arena isn't Wow. Wow isn't an esport. Stop trying to make it happen, it makes the game worse.

Give more BGs. Preferably big ones, with side objectives.

Arena and high stakes pvp competition have been huge in WoW starting with TBC 14 YEARS AGO

How to be delusional on mmoc lmao

but get rating via unbalanced fotm 2v2 is way easier than getting 10 good players for a funny RBG.

[Niwes]

Haven't watched it, dont care I stand by what I've always said. Arena isn't Wow. Wow isn't an esport. Stop trying to make it happen, it makes the game worse.

Give more BGs. Preferably big ones, with side objectives.

yep. agree 100%.

i started a pure PvP alt (actually 1600-1700 in RBG, 1600 2v2 and 1200 in 3v3) a while ago, after many many years just playing PvE. and i met SO much ppl hating arena and just doing it to reach that stupid levels to upgrade gear (1400, 1600. etc) to prevent themselfes buying a boost for a token (blizzards smart cash grab system and the real reason for pvp upgrade ratings and KSM VP upgrade levels). they ALL like RBGs 100 times more than fukin Arena, but get rating via unbalanced fotm 2v2 is way easier than getting 10 good players for a funny RBG.

if they stop focusing on that pseudo esports shit and Arena and instead focusing more on new and good RBGs, formeost with objectives being more important than fotm classes, i give Blizz another 12 bugs per month...

[mrgreenthump]

While I'm not really a supporter of solo queue, I don't really see his points having that much merit. Unfairness of comps should balance over time, one would think it would've it's own ladder. Let's say something is utterly broken in solo queue, just make it pair up with less powerful specs. Or perhaps if you get paired with no synergy at all and the system has data showing it almost always looses, you loose less rating from a loss and gain massively from a win.

I don't think solo queue people want a totally balance system anyways, they want to have fun fast without having to organize and feel like it's progressing their character in a meaningful way.

[Ticj]

Almost every single one of these issues is one that was obvious within 2 weeks of the expansion's launch. Why is this only now being acknowledged?

[Logwyn]

Almost every single one of these issues is one that was obvious within 2 weeks of the expansion's launch. Why is this only now being acknowledged?

COVID? I bet is their excuse.

[Stormspellz]

Almost every single one of these issues is one that was obvious within 2 weeks of the expansion's launch. Why is this only now being acknowledged?

same type of thinking of "you think you do but you don't" and why major problems in alpha make it into launch for the last 3 expansions only to be finally fixed after the subs crater.

[Icelin]

Give more BGs. Preferably big ones, with side objectives.

I'm pretty much in this boat. I know Ashran and Warfronts had some issues, but ultimately I participated in them quite a bit. You can't really get me into PVP much anymore.. since it has suffered over the years. I did really enjoy the big new maps tho and frequent them.

[Schmeebs]

Wait, you mean a player has an unreasonable suggestion for the developers? Not on MMO-C! Only the best ideas are discussed here! We're all certified game developers with multi-dollar salaries!

Having bad ideas is fine, but sometimes the ideas are so stupid they reach 'the earth is flat' levels.

[Relapses]

Having bad ideas is fine, but sometimes the ideas are so stupid they reach 'the earth is flat' levels.

Come on now, comparing the armchair game developer input from this forum to flat earthers is giving this place far too much credit.

[muto]

Another Mine Cart map would be cool. Also Seething Shore is trash remove it.

[Alayea]

Arena and high stakes pvp competition have been huge in WoW starting with TBC 14 YEARS AGO

How to be delusional on mmoc lmao

World of Warcraft has been a PvE game first and foremost. Battlegrounds weren't included at launch. Arena, as you stated, wasn't added until TBC (which Blizzard years later admitted had been a mistake). And what you get when trying to balance what was mainly an afterthought (PvP) with the original intent (PvE) is a Frankenstein of a game design. How many times over the years have players complained about PvE being affected by PvP balancing and vice versa, let alone gear acquisition? @willtron is correct.

Now if PvP had been designed alongside the PvE aspect when World of Warcraft was first being worked on, maybe the outcome would be different. Or perhaps not. Guess we'll never know.

[Nerovar]

I'll never understand how PvE players come into a thread about PvP specific issues and say shit like "Arena should never have been implemented! PvP was a mistake! WoW is a PvE game!!!"