You wanna know what really killed world pvp all those years ago?

[Drfireburns]

Yes they did.

Consider following scenario:

You level your little alt and some random 90 one shots you. This is repeated about 2-3 times until you decide to kick his sorry ass and log on your main.

When you come to the crime scene, the fucker hovers high above ground, probably making stupid emotes and all different kinds of shit, except for landing and letting you get your revenge.

Then you either do something different, or you log back on your alt to do what you actually wanted to do and rez. What happens? Yes, the ganker strikes again, swoops down on you and kills you once more.

Now "back then", it was only rogues and druids who were invincible to those who would want to get their revenge on them, but now? Any little cunt can ruin your day, isn't that cool?! (inb4 "ruining a day cause of ganking" - yes, it does, not as much as when your mom dies or something like that, but the fact that some bastard has some kind of strange pleasure from abusing you and preventing you from doing what you want to do does)

If someone flew into the air taunting me, I'd just fly up there with him, dismount, dot, and levitate/slowfall. I'd then continue following that idiot around and wait until I could fight him, or just dot him more and continue to fuck with him. That usually pisses the person off enough to either fight you back, or just get mad and log off.

[Deleted]

Or maybe world PVP isn't all that great like people make it out to be.

[derpkitteh]

Guards are easymode since MoP bro, at lvl 85 i could even solo them easily, at 90 it's just a facerole, they do 2k dmg out of your 400k..
Guards aint the problem, i think flying mounts are, people fly away when they are in danger instead of fighting back.

the guards are a part of the problem. it's no fun fighting 20+ guards with 500k health while there are 10+ players coming for your group too. they're not the only problem though obviously, but i don't think flying mounts are even part of the problem. they just let you run away easier and not get camped. they don't do a damn thing if you're raiding a town.

[Toc]

The countless threads like this, the hundreds that cry about pvp balance, and the dozens more demanding changes to certain spells or abilites for pvp purposes make me believe that Blizz should really just say screw it and stop wasting so many resources on a game play style that no one will ever be happy with. If all of these resources were then dumped back into PvE we could have 2 or more raid tiers per expansion :P

[Toobad]

If someone flew into the air taunting me, I'd just fly up there with him, dismount, dot, and levitate/slowfall. I'd then continue following that idiot around and wait until I could fight him, or just dot him more and continue to fuck with him. That usually pisses the person off enough to either fight you back, or just get mad and log off.

The only class effective at this is probably a fire mage.

You can cast slowfall, mount, fly up, throw a bunch of dots (which do crazy amount of damage), rinse and repeat.

As for priests, you can't get Levitate while mounted, so you have to fly up, dismount, cast Levitate and then dots. Too many GCDs to get all the dots up. All the target needs to do is fly up a little when he spots you falling down so that you can't reach him.

As for druids, I actually love when some poor chicken tries to pull this off on me. All you have to do is stay high above the ground in way that he can't reach you from the ground, but if he would want to dot you while in air, he will be stuck in combat and hits the ground before he can cast the flight form.

[Beat5beat]

What killed world PvP is Blizzard's inability to balance its server populations. World PvP thrived when you knew just as many Allies as Hordies had an equal chance of showing up to defend hostile actions. Then slowly, server balances began to shift and now you have what we see on just about every server... either Horde or Alliance domination and the opposing faction doesn't even try or give a shit because they know that for every one of them, the other side can sit around like a bunch of punks summoning reinforcements.

/sign and please fix blizzard! I'm horde, my server has literally 50 alliance for every horde player.

[MaximusRex]

Honor is what killed world PvP. Why have epic battles at Crossroads or South shore for almost nothing when you can go do BGs and get loots?

In all the years since Halaa has been the closest they have come to adding back in real random world PvP back in the game.

[Itisamuh]

Actually gear, one way or the other, had nothing to do with the death of world PvP all those years ago, and making PvE gear better is still stupid.

[Gimlix]

the guards are a part of the problem. it's no fun fighting 20+ guards with 500k health while there are 10+ players coming for your group too. they're not the only problem though obviously, but i don't think flying mounts are even part of the problem. they just let you run away easier and not get camped. they don't do a damn thing if you're raiding a town.

The guards have around 200k health, You can basicly 2 shot them, and since MoP they have disabled the massive amount of guards you pull.
If you run into a town you get around 3 guards max.

[Drfireburns]

The only class effective at this is probably a fire mage.

You can cast slowfall, mount, fly up, throw a bunch of dots (which do crazy amount of damage), rinse and repeat.

As for priests, you can't get Levitate while mounted, so you have to fly up, dismount, cast Levitate and then dots. Too many GCDs to get all the dots up. All the target needs to do is fly up a little when he spots you falling down so that you can't reach him.

As for druids, I actually love when some poor chicken tries to pull this off on me. All you have to do is stay high above the ground in way that he can't reach you from the ground, but if he would want to dot you while in air, he will be stuck in combat and hits the ground before he can cast the flight form.

During WotLK I would do this on my SPriest. Back then dots ticked hard enough to kill your target. This was especially fun at VoA.

[UnstoppableErasor]

Quality shitposting OP

[This post was infracted for minor spam.]

Example A.

[-Superman-]

World PvP was ruined by People. Nothing more, nothing less. People who would grief you for hours, in their PvP gear, on their flying mount, just out of reach of the guards, exploiting their surroundings and their level. When WPvP first came about, it was PEOPLE acting a fool that brought on PvP gear to help save you. It was PEOPLE acting a fool that necessitated guards to patrol areas and attack on sight. It was PEOPLE acting a fool that made flying necessary, and would ultimately be used by those same people. It was PEOPLE acting a fool that ganking became a hobby. It was PEOPLE acting a fool that kept PvErs from gearing up for PvP. It was PEOPLE acting a fool that made bots and wintrading popular in BGs.

Common theme is People. I approve of the new changes, but make no mistake, it will be PEOPLE acting a fool that find a way around the Resil nerf/buff and continue their old tricks. Will a 20 stand a chance against a 90? No, and he really never should. This is not Level vs Level, it is Player vs Player. But, will a 90 PvEr stand a chance against a 90 PvPer? For the first time, in a long time, the answer is yes

[ringpriest]

This, World PVP is barely PVP, Its a ganking fest.

Nah, it used to be quite real. Back before Resilience, before everyone was packing all epics, before we were all tired of the game, it really could be a blast. You'd run into the opposite faction while leveling and throw down, sometimes playing tag across half the zone. There'd be small raids and counter-raids on outposts. Or you'd have epic battles in the Plaguelands, or in Halaa and Hellfire once BC came out. Hellfire tended towards small skirmishes on my server, but Halaa turned into hours-long all out wars.

[-Superman-]

you'd have epic battles in the Plaguelands, or in Halaa and Hellfire once BC came out. Hellfire tended towards small skirmishes on my server, but Halaa turned into hours-long all out wars.

Agreed. I remember more than a few big battles in Plaguelands over the towers, long before quests were faction neutral. Back when I was still Alliance. The fights we would have with the Horde over tower control. Same with Halaa. So many of us we didn't use Wyverns, we just marched in on foot by the dozens and started slaughtering guards until 20 or 30 people from the Horde would show up and then we had a bigger fight on our hands. Such fun

[ringpriest]

i still blame the buffed up guards. wotlk was going, everything was pretty good, people raided the crossroads on an hourly basis and the horde defended it and it was a huge fun time. everyone loved it, even the lowbies. then the cata prepatch hit and 85 guards started popping up when they tried to raid and that's when everyone stopped, and never started back. that's how it happened on my realm, anyway.

The uber-guards were definitely the death-knell. Wrath world PvP wasn't quite as good as it was in vanilla and BC, but there were still some decent fights (and faction-leader killing raids, too). I spent hours and hours playing tag with Alliance around the Crossroads. And yeah, sure, the occasional lowbie would get ganked, or accidentally obliterated by AoE after flagging themselves; but I saw just as many (if not more) new players venturing out from Durotar or Mulgore going, "Holy %#!T that was awesome!" at the epic fight ranging across the outpost as there were complaining about the dead PCs and NPCs.

And yeah, then we got Cata-guards and suddenly you couldn't sneeze near an enemy outpost without running into a cuisinart. And that was basically then end of it - trying to do world-pvp without a full raid was a death sentence, and even then it was usually a losing proposition.

[Ebonheart]

There are so many factors that contributed to the demise of World PVP. However, on certain realms WPVP is still very much active but not what it use to be. WPVP on Emerald Dream where I spent some time on for the majority of Cataclysm was nothing about what WPVP was once about. It was more a gankfest with no honor. People abused mass summons.

Also PVP gear played a big part in that. Especially the introduction of resilience and arena gear. Sure Blizzard are trying to move away from that of late, but it really was the beginning of the end of WPVP. You had all these Arena carries with high end PVP gear come to duel you. What chance did you have against them?

Some would say Flying Mounts ended it. But that wouldn't take the fight out of the person? People still wanted to PVP. But the imbalance and the gear difference killed it. When PVP is more about gear, rather than any co ordination or skill, it should tell you something.

No matter what I do, or how hard I try, if I cannot kill someone that negates 60% of my damage, it really has nothing to do with me.

But the smaller factors have to do with a lot less people actually levelling and with very few people out in the world questing in the lower levels.

---------- Post added 2013-03-27 at 01:57 PM ----------

the guards are a part of the problem. it's no fun fighting 20+ guards with 500k health while there are 10+ players coming for your group too. they're not the only problem though obviously, but i don't think flying mounts are even part of the problem. they just let you run away easier and not get camped. they don't do a damn thing if you're raiding a town.

I think a lot of people are simply blaming guards for the drop in WPVP. However, it wasn't WPVP then. It was some high level idiot that dropped into a quest zone and obliterated all the flight masters, quest givers, and vendors in a quest hub. If you think WPVP is that then you are sadly mistaken. WPVP was always PVP out in the middle of nowhere, and you don't see elite guards patrolling the wilderness? And even if you do, its usually 1 which can easily be taken out by an organised group.

But what you and most people are suggesting are simply ganks in quest hubs. I fully support the buffs to guards, even though I am a strong advocate for WPVP, it was simply wrong for someone to come in and kill everyone in a quest hub. I remember levelling up back in the day, and how often I would find even on a PVE server, high level horde come by and stomp everyone in the Westfall quest hubs. It was annoying and frustrating. Even in quest hubs at Southshore. I would often find myself with no quest giver or flight master. If that is what you call WPVP, then I guess you are sadly mistaken.

Infact guards had nothing to do with the demise of WPVP.

[Mosotti]

Yes they did.

Consider following scenario:

You level your little alt and some random 90 one shots you. This is repeated about 2-3 times until you decide to kick his sorry ass and log on your main.

When you come to the crime scene, the fucker hovers high above ground, probably making stupid emotes and all different kinds of shit, except for landing and letting you get your revenge.

Then you either do something different, or you log back on your alt to do what you actually wanted to do and rez. What happens? Yes, the ganker strikes again, swoops down on you and kills you once more.

Now "back then", it was only rogues and druids who were invincible to those who would want to get their revenge on them, but now? Any little cunt can ruin your day, isn't that cool?! (inb4 "ruining a day cause of ganking" - yes, it does, not as much as when your mom dies or something like that, but the fact that some bastard has some kind of strange pleasure from abusing you and preventing you from doing what you want to do does)

Consider this scenario. You are leveling your MAIN, and there is no other MAIN. And everyone is killing you in 3 seconds, because they've played a full month of raids and PvP and you didn't. This is what happened to me in Pandaland at the begining. And no, I don't have friends to bother to help me with every idiot in this game

The thing is world PvP shoudn't be FORCED. In war you must have a way to retreat. So yeah, not allowing flying mounts in Pandaland was beyond stupid. One of the most used strategies in the past against vastly superior armies was to poison the fountains, burn the food and retreat. Not stay and be butchered like a fucking idiot.

[Ebonheart]

The uber-guards were definitely the death-knell. Wrath world PvP wasn't quite as good as it was in vanilla and BC, but there were still some decent fights (and faction-leader killing raids, too). I spent hours and hours playing tag with Alliance around the Crossroads. And yeah, sure, the occasional lowbie would get ganked, or accidentally obliterated by AoE after flagging themselves; but I saw just as many (if not more) new players venturing out from Durotar or Mulgore going, "Holy %#!T that was awesome!" at the epic fight ranging across the outpost as there were complaining about the dead PCs and NPCs.

And yeah, then we got Cata-guards and suddenly you couldn't sneeze near an enemy outpost without running into a cuisinart. And that was basically then end of it - trying to do world-pvp without a full raid was a death sentence, and even then it was usually a losing proposition.

If you are calling PVPing outside an outpost WPVP, then I think you are seriously joking. Probably one of those Arena carries or win traders too?

WPVP at its best was in random locations all over Azeroth not near some quest hub. It was in the middle of nowhere.

[ringpriest]

Also PVP gear played a big part in that. Especially the introduction of resilience and arena gear. Sure Blizzard are trying to move away from that of late, but it really was the beginning of the end of WPVP. You had all these Arena carries with high end PVP gear come to duel you. What chance did you have against them?

That's a really good point. Something I was going to mention earlier in this thread and then forgot (oops) was that you used to be able to win world PvP fights based on skill and knowing your class. It wasn't the exclusive determiner, but it definitely made a difference. PvP gear (and changes to the gearing model in general) basically did away with that. I know that when I tried PvPing in MoP, it simply came down to whoever had the better gear won, end of story.

But what you and most people are suggesting are simply ganks in quest hubs. I fully support the buffs to guards, even though I am a strong advocate for WPVP, it was simply wrong for someone to come in and kill everyone in a quest hub. I remember levelling up back in the day, and how often I would find even on a PVE server, high level horde come by and stomp everyone in the Westfall quest hubs. It was annoying and frustrating. Even in quest hubs at Southshore. I would often find myself with no quest giver or flight master. If that is what you call WPVP, then I guess you are sadly mistaken.

It wasn't just ganking, nor slaughtering NPCs. When you saw that "Crossroads is under attack" message on WorldDefense, it was a sign saying "Alliance wants to play!" Without the ability to find similarly inclined members of the opposite faction, and the absence of PvP hubs in Northrend other than Wintergrasp, all you were left with was challenging the duelists in front of the other guy's capital. And that was no fun for any number of reasons, including that the other side could run and hide in range of their guards.

[Deleted]

I think people will find that what the answer to what killed world pvp is very simple and the OP has no idea what he is on about.

World pvp was killed by may factors, some bigger than others. I feel that the biggest factor was the introduction of these LF queues, where tanks/healers/dps can now sign up to dungeon/raid groups without leaving the comfort of their own cities.
I remember a lot of the world pvp i did in tbc was around summoning stones, where players would first have to find groups manually and then help each other summon by using the stone placed outside dungeons. Some of my best moments where based around that stone outside WC.

Although the LFD has brought a lot less hassle to doing dungeons etc, i find that this is a very large factor in explaining why world pvp is lacking in some respects. It stops people from getting out into the world.