2.4 Arenas: Initial Thoughts

[WarpedAcorn]

I was bouncing around in Warzones last night, playing on characters in all the brackets, and was surprised by a few things.

Firstly, it appears (and maybe I am queueing incorrectly) that the new Arena's are a part of the regular unranked Warzone line up. This is surprising for a number a reasons, mostly that it seems a very odd "warzone" to PUG and it seems horribly unfair in the cases of the pre-55 bracket. For instance, my 49 Juggernaut was put in a group of fairly high 40's and low 50's for one of the random Warzone-Arenas, and we faced off against a group of mid-30's. Granted, they had a balanced group and we had 4 DPS, and there was bolster, but still...it just felt wrong.

As for the Arenas themselves, I saw maybe 3 different maps across 4 characters and I do like the format. All of the matches went VERY quick, and do like the 2-out-of-3 format instead of just doing a single match. The Arenas themselves seem well designed and have a lot of tactical options to play with LOS. The only thing I think would be cool to see added are traps and/or pits that could really make for some interesting environmental gameplay.

[Edge-]

Yeah, my jug I just started que'd up into one of the arena thingies. It was kinda a wreck. That kind of small scale fighting with pugs does not go well at all. Kinda disappointed, because I was looking forward to running a bunch of WZ's, but I really don't want to end up in those at all : /

[WarpedAcorn]

Initially, it seems like the fights (as a PUG) are very one sided. Like I wrecked shop one match, and another I was in a balanced group vs. a Powertech and 3 Snipers that obviously had a plan, because every 1-2 GCD's someone on my team died lol.

[RoninaThorstone]

Pug stomping is back and worse than ever?

Oh jeez.

[Fkiolaris]

Arenas should be on a separate queue from WZs, whoever thought it would be a good idea to have them together has obviously never ever ever done any pvp in an MMO. Like ever. If they want more variety for the casual pugs in terms of pvp, then they should add more proper WZs, ideally ones with higher number of players too.

[Deleted]

Arenas should be on a separate queue from WZs, whoever thought it would be a good idea to have them together has obviously never ever ever done any pvp in an MMO. Like ever. If they want more variety for the casual pugs in terms of pvp, then they should add more proper WZs

I've only done 1 up to now and quite enjoyed it...that said I agree with this comment, the 4 v 4 should definitely be on a separate queue.

[Deleted]

Questions for f2p-players
1. Are restrictions still in place? (2 wz/week)
2. I remember when f2p hit, a new warzone was in place for subscribers, do you still queue for that as f2p-player and get bug and cant join if queue wants to put you there?
3. With 2, is arenas available to f2p-players? If not, do they still queue for them and get bug?

[Edge-]

1. Yes, but soon they'll apparently remove the WZ limit for F2P players.

2. Not that I know of.

3. I think so? Can't confirm atm though -_-

[zaiid]

Now I had no idea that the ques for WZ's also included Arenas. I am vey exited to get back in the game after about a months break from heavy PvP.

I do agree that Arenas should be in a seperate que, or else I feel premades will just faceroll everything. Now however, what they could do is to not allow pre-mades for Arenas in a seperate que and make those who wants to play on a more serrious level go ranked and let the pugs enjoy their regular arenas.

I just hope BW realizes the situation and comes up with a fix for this.

[WarpedAcorn]

4 DPS vs. Healer + Tank + DPS is brutal in Arena's, even if the balanced group is a PUG. Especially with Healing being as powerful as it is right now in the game, I would like to see a mechanic for Unranked Arenas to only match groups with similar Class Roles (4 DPS vs. 4 DPS for example). Otherwise its just not fair.

After another night PvPing across the various brackets, I was placed on both sides of that coin and I only came out on top once vs. a team with a healer (and only because their Sorc never used Bubble or tried to move, they just stood there). Other than that, every fight where one side had a healer and the other side didn't, the one with the healer always won.

[Kelimbror]

I can't believe the idea to put arenas in the regular WZ queue even made it past the first person who suggested they do it. It's a monumentally horrible idea.

[WarpedAcorn]

I can't believe the idea to put arenas in the regular WZ queue even made it past the first person who suggested they do it. It's a monumentally horrible idea.

I agree 100%. Now, I think the maps for the Arenas are cool and the concept is cool...but having them be in the normal rotation is silly. I hope they listen to the feedback and add a separate queue for them. I don't want Arenas to be ranked only, so having an unranked Arena option would be nice.

The plus side is that Arena matches are fast. They're over in less than 5min.

[Revik]

I've tried arenas and you guys should really thinking about queuing up to solo ranked. This matches up DPS for DPS, Healer to Healer, and Tank to Tank. This puts together some nice fights and all the games I've played pretty much came down to the last round to win.

And to answer all your questions on as to why they put this as apart of the same rotation was actually commented on by Bioware already. They did not want to fragment the already existing PvP audience into 2 groups. This could have the negative effect of not enough people playing on either side resulting in even worse problems than the one creating here.

I for one agree with the logic and probably would have made the same decision. I totally get that this is new style of WZ that is totally different than the ones existing and that this could be a turn off. Perhaps when they do see that there will be enough people playing for both sides they can separate the 2 but for not it is what it is.

[Edge-]

I can't believe the idea to put arenas in the regular WZ queue even made it past the first person who suggested they do it. It's a monumentally horrible idea.

Sadly, this is on par with most of their ideas about PvP. Ilum 1.0, Ilum 2.0, Ilum 3.0, bolster etc.

Whoever they pulled from Mythic to work on the PvP is really bad at the higher concept stuff and apparently his bosses assume he's not or something.

And to answer all your questions on as to why they put this as apart of the same rotation was actually commented on by Bioware already. They did not want to fragment the already existing PvP audience into 2 groups. This could have the negative effect of not enough people playing on either side resulting in even worse problems than the one creating here.

Good intentions, but I worry that it will have the affect on others that it's had on me. I really don't want to queue up for PvP now because I'm afraid I'll get the arena's. The few I've done have been so horribly one sided one way or the other that it's not even remotely fun. It's not fun to steamroll your enemies, and it's not fun to get steamrolled. Never actually had a third match, it's always been 2/0 or 0/2.

Honestly, they should have simply left arena's as ranked only. The smaller scale PvP like that lends itself to organized groups far more than the more open, objective based WZ's do.

[Revik]

Sadly, this is on par with most of their ideas about PvP. Ilum 1.0, Ilum 2.0, Ilum 3.0, bolster etc.

Whoever they pulled from Mythic to work on the PvP is really bad at the higher concept stuff and apparently his bosses assume he's not or something.



Good intentions, but I worry that it will have the affect on others that it's had on me. I really don't want to queue up for PvP now because I'm afraid I'll get the arena's. The few I've done have been so horribly one sided one way or the other that it's not even remotely fun. It's not fun to steamroll your enemies, and it's not fun to get steamrolled. Never actually had a third match, it's always been 2/0 or 0/2.

Honestly, they should have simply left arena's as ranked only. The smaller scale PvP like that lends itself to organized groups far more than the more open, objective based WZ's do.

I actually thought I would have had the same reaction as yourself as I loathe arenas in WoW. But the way this is setup it doesn't feel so bad. I know objective focused PvP is quite a bit different than team death matches and it is unfortunately that some will opt out but I actually do believe this is better for the game on the whole.

Like I mentioned above I would recommend solo ranked. You are matched to other solo ranked queuers so you are not facing premades and player specs are matched. So if you are in a group of 4 dps than the other team is also 4 dps. I actually wouldn't mind it if Bioware did something similar like this for solo ranked WZs.

[moff]

my only guess is that people would probably qeue only for arenas if they had the choice to queue for them separately, because they give you warzone commendations much faster

[Deleted]

my only guess is that people would probably qeue only for arenas if they had the choice to queue for them separately, because they give you warzone commendations much faster

This and there would also be a lot of AFKers as it's a lot faster to lose an arena than to lose a warzone.
I read on the official forums that there are already AFKers in Solo Ranked Arenas... :/

[moff]

the official answer from bioware says that there are already different types of warzones: huttball, alderaan, void star etc. it would make no sense to separate them too and would only increase qeues for pvp. of course they're completely wrong about the first, arena gameplay differs completely from huttball, alderaan etc. not only becauts it only 4 players.

but the might be right about pvp waiting time. I havent dont any pvp since the patch so it might actually decrease pvp wait time if you have the same queue for 4 player and 8 player warzones . I dont know. but I certainly expected differenz qeues for arenas, as I expect a different qeue for the SSSP pvp.

[WarpedAcorn]

I dunno, my queue time seems to have increased since the patch...especially for 55 Warzones. But that *could* be due to more PvE content that is taking up people's attention. Same thing happens during the Gree and Bounty Hunting events, the latter of which I still haven't tried. XD

[Kelimbror]

Which brings us around to why queues for all games should be cross server. Having bad design to compensate for arbitrary limitations is layers of bad decisions. This is 2013. Most people playing MMOs do not want to wait an extra hour just to play with people they see afk on the fleet sometimes.

MMOs need to realize that social groups will only be formed by people actively seeking that and only if given ample tools to do so. None of these games are going to be able to force people to be social. Blizzard is just about the only company that understands this right now. Most others still listen to the vocal minority when making decisions.

(This is of course assuming that PvP is still same server queues like dungeons, which I could be wrong about b/c I don't read up on their development anymore)((Point still stands in a larger sense, regardless of that last caveat))