How is PVP ever going to be somewhat balanced when the PTR doesn't care...

[Raldazzar]

Hi.

So, I'm getting a little tired of reading this sort of crap on the front page. Every patch pvpers go up and down, that is the way of mmo's and I get that. afterall, It's all extensively tested right?

On the PTR, there is frequent and consistent bugs or things that quite frankly, shouldnt be in place which hinder the testing. to a non pvper these might seem like not a big deal, but how exactly can Blizz claim that these pvp nerfs/buffs are acceptable, when the test environment isnt condusive? They even posted last week saying 'people don't test PVP out much on the PTR, so its hard to get an idea of things'

I would understand that if it wasn't for these things such as.. Battle fatigue not working. how are we meant to test the effect of all the various changes if the healing debuff applied in the pvp isnt present? It means any testing is going to result in hybrids looking op. and various other imbalances.

On top of that, I see absolutely no reason Blizzard cannot arrange premade chars to have a set of pvp gear on them. The reason for this is simple, I can copy over my char to the PTR.. and test the changes. fight away vs others, however that person could be ridiculously undergeared. so both myself and them are thinking 'damn this is OP' and therefore feedback just looks bad.

If all the chars were given a set of pvp gear be it current or last season, would then be on an equal footing and testing would be somewhat more accurate.

These might not seem like big things, but it is starting to drive me up the wall when I see change after change.. yet they haven't even put procedures in place to allow proper testing!

./rant over.

[Thirtyrock]

Well, yeah, some of this is quite frustrating, particularly battle fatigue, but, well...I mean things break. I doubt, seriously, that they would break this on purpose. It's unintended.

As far as the premades, I'm with you, but at this point you can buy tyrannical gear for the starting gold, so that's kinda null and void. but if you haven't been on the ptr since the last patch you might not know that.

[Armond]

One of the problems is, as you said, people need to be on an equal footing with relatively equal gear to test pvp and determine imbalances. On the live servers, this just doesn't happen a lot of the time. So, even if everything were working properly, that's something you have to account for.

[Deleted]

Blizzard doesn't care much about pvp balance, it's not a priority. It would be easier for people if they accepted that fact and played pvp-oriented games if they want balance.

[Principe]

Blizzard doesn't care much about pvp balance, it's not a priority. It would be easier for people if they accepted that fact and played pvp-oriented games if they want balance.

Except the majority of the mmos focus on dragons and if they have balanced pvp then its probably nothing as complex as wow pvp.

[Rorke]

I can't believe people actually think Blizzard doesn't care when they're constantly giving feedback based around pvp. This patch alone has provided us with more pvp feedback than every other patch combined.

[PrairieChicken]

Well I feel like balance is getting into right direction - except for the fact that Warlocks are not getting nerfed.

More serious problem that's plaguing PVP is huge gear discrepancy from PVE gear model being implemented + upgrades.

[Shadowygoodness]

Well I feel like balance is getting into right direction - except for the fact that Warlocks are not getting nerfed.

More serious problem that's plaguing PVP is huge gear discrepancy from PVE gear model being implemented + upgrades.

Can't take you seriously. Obviously you have not seen that Blood Fear has been completely reworked.

[Deleted]

They could easily balance it, if they'd stop been lazy and just make abilities act differently in PvP, to scale down damage and CC etc. Give flat stats to everyone so gear isn't an advantage.
Other games do it and they have a much happier PvP community when it comes to balance.


PvP should be about your individual and team skill, not gear and fotm comps.

[Feranor]

PvP in WoW will become decent when:

• Blizz starts balancing around the actual potential of a class, and not based on how many people play it (e.g. Monk + Rogue buffs), QQ (e.g. Feral nerfs) or personal bias (e.g. Mage being protected from nerfs)
• Excessive crutches are removed (e.g. enemy group frames, ridiculous macros etc.)
• Someone releases an MMORPG that has better PvP than WoW to introduce some competition
• Blizz separates PvE raids from PvP instead of making reckless PvE-oriented changes followed by a trickle of delayed, half-assed band-aid patches to PvP that don't even work
• Instanced PvP is removed and World PvP (no, Winterlag, Lol Barad, Halaa or Quel'Danas were not World PvP) is fostered instead
• Gear upgrades through PvP are (mostly) cosmetic
• CC system is revamped to prevent mindless spamming/chaining
• Damage and healing calculation in PvP takes into account that players, unlike raid bosses, do not have millions of HP

Not necessarily exhaustive.

[08nolanni]

Question for PVP players. Would you notice balance if it smacked you in the face ?

Arena's and particularly 3v3 combat is Blizzards best chance at balances classes and specs that work together.

Feranor list is cute and all. But it sounds like basic un-organised PvP to me.

Last point. Would Balance assume vsing a person of equal skill. You and them would have a 50/50 W/L Ratio ?

[velde046]

OP, like quoted, Blizzard stated there aren't enough people testing PVP on PTR... so it's very hard for Blizzard to test the stuff because:
- There's only a small set of people testing
- Gear levels are different
- Player skills are different

Because there are so many variable that Blizzard cannot control, testing it thorough is just extremely hard and perhaps near impossible. They have to make educated guesses (a lot). What kind of procedures can they put in place to test it?
Even if they had like 100 elite PVP'ers in house to test it it would still be hard because of different skills between people. And they would have to play many, many , many hours to get any reliable and useless data. This would mean that testing could take several months at least.

[Itisamuh]

Keep in mind, we're talking about a company (and sadly, playerbase) that doesn't understand why a tie not being a tie is stupid and an insult to competition. They'll never have a clue, and as long as fools who don't understand competition back up their changes, they'll never make it better.

[Raldazzar]

I can't believe people actually think Blizzard doesn't care when they're constantly giving feedback based around pvp. This patch alone has provided us with more pvp feedback than every other patch combined.

But this is my concern, we have all this pvp feedback.. but based on what? if the test realms arent functioning as live would. in terms of battle fatigue etc and a basic level of pvp gear... then how is that feedback going to be accurate or relevant when it hits live?

I didn't know about tyrannical being available for gold, that is absolutely a smart move, but and I hate to play the 'card' here.. premades get the pve gear just.. there. why cant they have pvp in the bank or so? or in the bags with them. going to buy it for gold is a hassle that im sure alot dont know about or have the effort to go and get.

It just seems shoddy, I'm not saying blizzard don't care. I'm saying that in order to provide us with the best balance. surely they should be encouraging us to hit up the PTR. rather then giving us bugged features that disallow proper rational testing.

I'm not talking class v class, Im talking pvp on the whole.

How can they know if the new blood fear is too strong or not when facing melee? if warriors and rogues arent getting any fatigue on leeching/second wind etc.. surely it would skew the results to make it seem like blood fear is weaker then it actually is. if you see my point :P

[Trisrx]

Bgs were down on the PTR for over a month when they said that quote about people not participating in pvp. Then when bgs finally came back up, it was accompanied by them saying 'were pretty much done making major changes now, just minor tweaks from here on out'. *Rage*

But still, pvp in 5.2 is an improvement for sure. The subscriber loss is making blizzard try harder, and if the subscriber count continues to decline, its a safe bet that it will be good news for the game.

[corebit]

The sad truth is that the "elite" PVP players complain the loudest but somehow are never arsed about getting on the PTR and helping Blizzard balance by testing. In contrast, tons of top PVErs help test raid content and that's why raids always come out very polished.

Only a few of the top PVPers actually have a mind to hop on the PTR like Affx and test stuff.

[Stormspellz]

I can't believe people actually think Blizzard doesn't care when they're constantly giving feedback based around pvp. This patch alone has provided us with more pvp feedback than every other patch combined.

they only give feedback when enough noise has been raised about and months after the fact, wintrading, stampede, ect are all recent examples of this.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 09:48 AM ----------

The sad truth is that the "elite" PVP players complain the loudest but somehow are never arsed about getting on the PTR and helping Blizzard balance by testing. In contrast, tons of top PVErs help test raid content and that's why raids always come out very polished.

Only a few of the top PVPers actually have a mind to hop on the PTR like Affx and test stuff.

pvprs have done the whole ptr thing, but when you are ignored on the ptr time after time you kinda dont' bother anymore, again look at stampede what 6 months if you include beta the players said "it does way to much damage", "dps healing is way to high", "dps cds stacking needs fixed", ect ect.

and look we are still talking about such topics

[Deleted]

They've said before that they get very few people doing pvp testing on the PTRs. Some of the few that do any pvp testing are probably there just to mess around and test new spells anyway, so there's little serious pvp.

That's part of the reason why we get so many pvp related hotfixes in between patches. Since they don't get enough info from the PTRs, they release patches with untested changes and adjust things based on what they see happening to the balance on Live.

[Stormspellz]

They've said before that they get very few people doing pvp testing on the PTRs. Some of the few that do any pvp testing are probably there just to mess around and test new spells anyway, so there's little serious pvp.

That's part of the reason why we get so many pvp related hotfixes in between patches. Since they don't get enough info from the PTRs, they release patches with untested changes and adjust things based on what they see happening to the balance on Live.

of course they said its a cop out, but people have been rather active on the ptr, heck aj used to have 100+ page discussions on ptr

[Deleted]

of course they said its a cop out, but people have been rather active on the ptr, heck aj used to have 100+ page discussions on ptr

Discussing pvp changes is very different from testing pvp changes. A lot of people have opinions, but opinions make a poor balancing tool because everyone has a different and biased view of things. People generally don't agree on which changes are good and which are bad.