PvP ilvl does not matter as much as people think.

[Mafic]

Cata was arguably the best time for pvp imo. It was the first time every spec felt like it had a place in pvp. Now yes, there were many dumb abilities added, along with legendaries and op trinkets. But it was still fun.
Then MoP came out and turned it up to 11 were everyone had a counter for everything. I haven't done pvp since.

I liked MoP better because that was the height of player customization.

Cata PVP had a rough start and only improved toward the end.

[stigz]

Okay. Well if they're going to go this route, then why are rogues/rets still BROKEN in PvP?

If they are throwing the gear variable out of the balancing fiasco, then we should expect from the top MMO company on the planet to have everything near perfectly balanced imo.

And like someone else said.. players that only arena/rated bg 24/7... what's the point in them even leveling?

[Sencha]

How did that end up working out in Legion? Oh yeah, 90% dropoff in participation.

Source?

/10c

[wholol]

Source?

/10c

You can compare season participation easily , since titles were % based you could calculate the total amount of players based on the number of people who got titles at any bracket.

Though it's not 90% reduction in participation like kagthul says but it is at least 50% reduction from WoD -> Legion , we'll have to see about BFA in a few seasons to give an accurate response about BFA participation though.

[NutellaCrepe]

How did that end up working out in Legion? Oh yeah, 90% dropoff in participation. Ladder Collapse. Skyrocketing queue times. You need a large base of players to support a healthy PvP community. For every 2400 rated player, you need dozens of people that are sub1600.

An issue with Legion was the AP grind, which had players log on for 1-2 hours just to farm AP not to fall too far behind. A lot of casual players who would usually log on for a few PvP games were instead bound by the treadmill that was AP.

There's probably a great deal of reasons why PvP was not great in legion.

You also need to expand your concept of what PvP is. To some, it's arenas. To others, it's BGs. I have never had a problem getting into BGs in legion, and I, as well as many people who play this game, could not give 2 cents about arena. I only played it in previous expansions because I was forced to do the weekly arenas to get gear.

I'd love to know your actual source of 90% drop off. If you're gonna give a number like that, better back it up. Don't do the BS thing telling me to look it up. Provide a source if you want any credibility.

[Bearilla]

Was the grind for pvp gear really that bad? I actually enjoyed it. I also liked the customization it offered. Now I just throw on whatever piece of crap I have that is the highest ilvl.

If other people grinded the gear faster then they would own. Just like grinding for pve gear.... If someone puts in more time then what is the problem with them having better gear? Making it to where pve translates over into pvp is pretty stupid. Looks like they are trying to counter that a little by making raid gear available in rated pvp.

[apelsinjuice]

Was the grind for pvp gear really that bad? I actually enjoyed it. I also liked the customization it offered. Now I just throw on whatever piece of crap I have that is the highest ilvl.

If other people grinded the gear faster then they would own. Just like grinding for pve gear.... If someone puts in more time then what is the problem with them having better gear? Making it to where pve translates over into pvp is pretty stupid. Looks like they are trying to counter that a little by making raid gear available in rated pvp.

well in legion with the templates gear didnt even matter, 10 ilvls was 1% more power.

[Kagthul]

An issue with Legion was the AP grind, which had players log on for 1-2 hours just to farm AP not to fall too far behind. A lot of casual players who would usually log on for a few PvP games were instead bound by the treadmill that was AP.

There's probably a great deal of reasons why PvP was not great in legion.

It is almost entirely rewards. You remove the rewards (in a reward-based, progression-based game), and you remove the incentive for the players to do it. This has been discussed to death here already.

You also need to expand your concept of what PvP is.

No, i really dont. Im one of the biggest proponents on this board for ignoring Arena entirely and focusing solely on the casual BG experience because that's what 80+% of the PvP crowed used to do (exclusively). I detest Arena and what it did to PvP in WoW. But i aknowledge that it is fun for some people, so by all means, keep it.

To some, it's arenas. To others, it's BGs. I have never had a problem getting into BGs in legion, and I, as well as many people who play this game, could not give 2 cents about arena. I only played it in previous expansions because I was forced to do the weekly arenas to get gear.

Only in TBC. After that, you could get CQ gear from casuals, however slowly, which was fine, IMO. I was one of them.

I'd love to know your actual source of 90% drop off. If you're gonna give a number like that, better back it up.

The. Fucking. Armory.

Its ben sourced. Its been discussed. Its been in half a dozen threads ON THIS VERY FUCKING FORUM. The Arena numbers are posted ON THE FUCKING FRONT PAGE here, and in Blue posts on the WoW forums. They tell you EXACTLY how many people got R1. You can (if you know the math) match backwards to figure out exactly how many people were on the entire Ladder (as it is a pyramidal ladder system). (Rough numbers, you can be less of a lazy ass johny-come-lately and look it up yourself) There were roughly 60,000 people on the ladder in S2 of Legion (the busiest - and that was across both Factions, with about 40k Horde and 22k Alliance); there were over 630,000 on the ladder in the last season of WoD (which was the lowest participation season up to that date). Thats a 90% dropoff.

For casual participation, that was ALSO available here on the front page of MMO Champ.

Prior to Legion, in the -worst- season (WoD Season 2) 45% of ALL max-level characters had he 25,000 Conquest achievement.
45% of ALL characters. (Most seasons were closer to 48%, going all the way back to when the 25,000CQ/season achievements were added)

In Legion, during Season 3, MMOC did an Armory dive and showed what the levels of Prestige were - less than 4% had Prestige 12. (Prestige 12 being roughly equivalent of getting the 25,000 Conquest achievement for one season).

So, we went from ~45% of the entire max level player base getting the 25k CQ achievement EVERY SEASON to, over the course of the entire Legion xpac, only 4% (actually less, was something like 3.8%) did that much PvP for the entire expansion.

Even Prestige 2 was sub 15%. Prestige TWO. And we have no way of knowing how many of those people with Prestige 12+ even PvPed. I played maybe 30 BGs the entire xpac (almost all of them early on) and had Prestige 40 thanks to World Quests (because i like the mounts). And i could have had it maxed out if i'd bothered to stick with it.

Don't do the BS thing telling me to look it up. Provide a source if you want any credibility.

THe mistake you're making here is assuming i give a crap if you believe im credible. I don't. This has been discussed to death here, on this forum. Half a dozen times. The facts have been posted to and linked (and most of them were right here on the front page of MMOC). I'm not rehashing it AGAIN because you're too lazy to search the forums.

[solvexx]

Frankly i hate the concept of grinding PVP gear for hours just for your character to even remotely stand a chance in PVP.

I have one of every class at max level (not yet in BFA but at some point) and frankly i like to do occasional PVP on whatever spec/character i feel like.

Sometimes i even use my horde characters if my horde-only friends are online for some pvp.

Having to grind a basic set of "honor" gear on EVERY character (and sometimes even spec specific) has been the number 1 reason why i could not bother doing pvp.

For me PVP is a casual minigame in wow and something to do on the side when you feel like it.

If i have to go through hours and hours of awful grinding while insta-dying just to be able to get honor gear and then see how that spec even remotely compares in PVP then i would rather not play pvp at all.

Great! Don't PvP then!

I don't want to grind for hours to PvE. Guess we are in agreement!

Cool!

[Kagthul]

Source?

/10c

Front page of this website (up to several months ago depending on which statistic and which venue we're talking about).

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well in legion with the templates gear didnt even matter, 10 ilvls was 1% more power.

and the difference between Honor gear (obtainable in ~6 hours) and Conquest gear was 9%.

Considering the iLevel floor in Legion was 800, it was absurdly easy to have a BIGGER gear gap (getting ~930 was trivial for me as a total casual just farming Argus) than in WoD and previous expansions.

The "gear doesn't matter" line was an outright falsehood.

[Bearilla]

well in legion with the templates gear didnt even matter, 10 ilvls was 1% more power.

and? There is still a gap (larger than when PVP gear was a thing). If templates are what bliz is pushing then why should gear matter at all? Is it supposed to fill the progression void they have left in PVP? Well, even if that is the case it kinda sucks they made the best road for progression for PVP doing PVE content. How would PVE players feel if they made the best raid gear available only in PVP? And what about customization? Being able to stack certain stats and socket gear? They have completely removed the option in PVP. Maybe they should make PVE templates to help "balance" the game. God forbid I get into a raid and someone with more time put in does better than me and has better gear than me.

[Eliessa]

despite was people here claim, normal people dont give a fuck about fair play. they want their gear, their mounts and titles and that's it. they dont give a fuck about your opinion of "fair" games and other blablabla. no wonder pvp almost died in legion

[cronotose]

1) making item level matter is bad for "player activity"
2) pvp exists outside of "rated"
3) "rated" pvp is a minority
4) gear progression works for pve not pvp. because pvp realistically has no balance. and the ladder system does not work.

Hypothetically, separate random bgs into two queues - one with gear matters and one that gear doesnt matter. Which one do you think most people would join?

And if "gear should matter," why do they lock item level in arena tournaments and mdi?

Making item level matter makes no sense other than to dangle carrot on a stick to lure players in.
If you won't pvp because it won't give you a gear advantage do you really like pvp? I'd say nope.

There was a time when all pvp counted item stats. Nobody felt cheated. Nobody complained on WSG was unfair because the level 19 rogue twink was being a bully. PVP was incredibly popular.

You're inventing imaginary problems for stat equalizing to fix.

[Mafic]

despite was people here claim, normal people dont give a fuck about fair play. they want their gear, their mounts and titles and that's it. they dont give a fuck about your opinion of "fair" games and other blablabla. no wonder pvp almost died in legion

Fair play happens in rated play since most people above 1800 are geared roughly in the same ball park. Asking for fair play in unrated game play is daunting in that even if noobs in greens show up they can still pick three poor honor talents and be dead weight to a team.

So the noob in green is scaled to be competitive with a player in epics in terms of damage. But with poor honor talent selections they are still a paper weight. Instead of being sent to the gy in 5 seconds they linger around for 10 seconds.

If I am to be objectively honest a player isn't going to learn much about PVP because they can do "more" damage in greens because of scaling. If they don't learn the proper talents to use, proper gearing or even learn how to survive then the extra 5 seconds they gain is pointless.

That is why scaling may work in FPS games but in a MMORPG there are too many factors to consider (eg when to line up CDs with trinkets or procs).

[FAILoZOFF]

True. WoW is specifically an MMORPG, not MMOPVP.

Funny cause in theory you are right, but it has nothing to do with reality. OFC there are no strict point at which game becomes or earns right to call itself MMO nor RPG and its mostly a subjective opinion, but there are games that allow more players to play together without being called Massive(MO) and arguably there are veeery few RPG elements left in WoW; that's not an insult in any way- times change.
Besides using (game) genres as anything besides that is just foolish.
Other MMORPGs for instance punish players that failed and died by reducing their XP and taking away their items, WoW doesn't do that nor ever did. So what? Nothjing, different games.

Indeed which is why when I say Legion is a failure PVE players think that Legion was the best! Honestly, PVE players can believe what they want but yeah Legion was really bad for me. I thought Cata and WoD were bad for PVP for different reasons but Legion blew both out of the water.

I have never played for gear nor advantage it provided in the past (for like 3 expansions in a row, that wasn't really the case). Yeah, I too barely played Legion PvP but it has nothing to do with gear or rewards, just the gameplay being totally thrashy with little to no way of outplaying/outsmarting your opponent. WoW PvP became pretty much a dps race with random interrupt or cc here and there - at best. For most part thanks to pruning.

True, but it makes it more "fun" for the bad player and the bad player doesn't learning anything from it if they are able to do more pew pew before being sent to the gy.

Pointless garbage that doesn't help players grow and improve in PVP. It is basically the illusion of competition.

Oh yeah, getting insta killed will surely help these people "grow". I can already see that though my magic crystal ball. Why have them be able to consider what they did wrong or at what point they lost it.... lets just global them or stunlock 100-0 without any chance of fighting back, THAT WILL TEACH THEM.
FcK lockic!!111!!!

Leave templates to the competitive pvp parts of the game

much logic there, except NOT. People at the top were ALWAYS on pretty much EQUAL standing.

The amount of people here trying to defend it is hilarious. PvE =/= PvP. Trying to draw comparisons between the two will never work. Explain something to me though. The logic I keep seeing is "BGs are entry level content, just like normals. If you throw a player into a mythic raid with greens, he wont have fun." BGs are not entry level content. Players try and use it as entry level content to get easy drops.

BGs are entry level PvP, for good or the worse, usually the latter.

Its also not as unfair as you want to pretend it is. If you're undergeared, chances are someone on their team is too. YOU are not the sole focus of the BG, its a team effort to win a match.

yeah, chances; in past you could pretty accurately predict a result of given BG just looking over your and enemy team and that result was determined right as you zoned in

Also, a player in greens has no business globaling players in full gladiator gear. To suggest that it should be the case is sad. A truly good player doesn't NEED gear to win a fight, or to contribute. Systems like templates essentially make gear worthless, and gear upgrades as well. This is just a case of entitled whining, players wanting to be equal to other players without putting in the time to do so, something that is a staple of any MMO.

- - - Updated - - -

a truly good player doesn't need (gear) advantage to rule in 1st place; and pretty much whole sentence sounds like a whining of entitled person with lil bit of too much free time

Asking for free stats without putting the time in to getting it is just as lame and brainless.

If you're honestly going to tell me that I should work and grind for hours just to get a measly 20% increased damage and health overall, you can stick it.

- - - Updated - - -

time and time and time; time means nothing if its utilized worthlessly
I know a lot of people that spend a massive amount of time in this game, have gotten pretty much nowhere, learned about nothing and achieved even less.
Besides, if this game had anything in common with balance, a 20% stat advantage in CD based game is pretty much a massive amount.[/QUOTE]

11-0 in my last BG with top points contributed (shore) and top damage. Gear doesn't matter, and yet I still dominate?

oh yeah, random BGs are srs bzns and benchmark of TRUE skill, with all bots and and people not gioving a FK or even straight up AFKing.

Templates and this scaling nonsense just limit me. In previous expansions I might be 40-0 easily winning 1v3 fights because I know how to use cooldowns. In both Legion and BFA I simply take my hands off the keyboard anytime I end up in a fight with more than 1 person, because it doesn't matter how unskilled they are, I'm unable to do enough damage to kill one before I die myself. Thats fun? Thats fair? That two bad players who are visibly worse than I am just based on their movement skills should be able to kill me?

chances are you have never been this (or even any) good, gear advantage might have caused your ego to dwarf your true ability and getting back to reality feels bad
twinks were always dominating BGs even if they clicked and kb turned their way to the end, it never meant they were any good, just that they have ENOUGH advantage to make it possible
that's ok, this game was NEVER all that really skillful and over the time, its gotten even worse at that

[tru]

At the same time someone that's been playing and pvping all expansion should crush a new player that just started that's just how it should be. We should be more powerful and if we vs the same type of player there's your more even match.

[Deleted]

My post will be somewhat harsh, so if you can not take othes opinion don't read. REaction isn't needed either.

Reading these 5 pages makes me kind of sad. Truly. Sad.

PvP in arena should be always even footed. same power across the opposing teams. Otherwise it's not fairplay, what would be the point of PvE heroes flat out killing you without the deeper knowledge of the game? What would be the point of PvP if the differentiating factor is time spent farming f***ing Artifact power. I personally think that wow arena is a better game than leage, or CS BECAUSE it's not primarily reflex based, you have to know the game, the tactics better and only after that comes the reflex into play. let me explain, it does matter what spell and when do you interrupt not only how fast can you do it. of course reflex matters but not primarily. But in lol, and cs reflex matter more than true deeper knowledge and of course tactics matter aswell just the order is different.

When wow was made it was an MMORPG, but arenas got introduced and a lot of f***ing stuff changed since aswell. So calling things out based on that wow is MMORPG things should be this or that way... People who don't understand that things change are f***ing stupid.
Some say that blizzard tried and failed and things didn't work in previous expansions without taking every aspect into count.. that doesn't f***ing mean that the concept is bad it only means that the concept was badly applied, BUT maybe an other iteration will work better.

TLDR: if Blizz applies some kind of stat template or hidden scaling IN ARENA I'm happy for it, I like the idea, because if you are good enough you will get better gear for pve, and world environment, but it's STILL a fair game in arena. people who just want to smash new players in arena, because they are playing for a longer time, how f***ing stupid can you be? you don't see the forest for the trees. sad world. "I should be the king in pvp, because I have more time, and I'm playing longer than you" like what? And of course If you beat a PvE boss you should get more powerful gear aswell, but it should not affect your arena power.

Peace bros. And don't come at me for my English, because it's not my mother tounge.

In the end I'm happy if templates and scaling is active that's what matters. People should get more common sense. You, not you my dear reader, ou of course are the exception, you are clever enough. You know the telling who is present is always exception.

[Deleted]

This sucks (for me) because my imba geared rogue was getting one shotted by some scrub Monk with 80k hp wehn i had 113k hp.
Makes no sense.

Here is a video explaining

[Mafic]

Oh yeah, getting insta killed will surely help these people "grow". I can already see that though my magic crystal ball. Why have them be able to consider what they did wrong or at what point they lost it.... lets just global them or stunlock 100-0 without any chance of fighting back, THAT WILL TEACH THEM.
FcK lockic!!111!!!

It doesn't matter if these players are globaled or if they linger around 10 seconds. Because of scaling they will never learn the proper way to survive, burst, etc. The quickest way to learn PVP is to fail.

Being handed a participation trophy by rewarding players with poor gear to do relatively similar DPS to those that take gearing seriously doesn't help. One, it undermines the effort, time investment and reward and fun for that player min/maxing new and old ideas. Second, it undermines new players as it gives them a false sense of skill.

In other words these players due to scaling can not and will not improve in terms of skill AND gear. There is a lot of talking in this thread about skills vs gear for WoW PVP moving forward.

But current BFA design paradigm for PVP is really unrewarding for skilled PVP players and also PVP players that want gear to matter in PVP.

All because Blizzard wants to make it easier on players in green gear who refuse to put buttons on their bars.

- - - Updated - - -

This sucks (for me) because my imba geared rogue was getting one shotted by some scrub Monk with 80k hp wehn i had 113k hp.
Makes no sense.

Here is a video explaining

That is something players have discovered with the big flaw with scaling in BFA. Blizzard is very stubborn about it so don't see a fix anytime soon.

[Deleted]

What if im playing enhancement shaman PVE with 354 ilvl and want to pvp as resto but my ilvl drops 5-6 ilvls because of weapons and trinkets. then I take more dmg because of my inventory? that seems fair, I see no flaws in that system at all... just smile and wave.

Blizzard persuit to punish and remove cookiecutter behaviour and generally character progression is mind boggling.. but hey YAY for timegating and moooore ALTS.
I dont want depth to the game which has so much potential