Why did they try to balance off High ilvl gear vs fresh max lvls?

[Randyviper3]

If it were up to me gear would not play any part in arena or battlegrounds at all. Everyone would have the exact same item level and there would be a stat template for each class.

[Kagthul]

If it were up to me gear would not play any part in arena or battlegrounds at all. Everyone would have the exact same item level and there would be a stat template for each class. I would take classic no scaling over the inconsistent and unexplained garbage scaling we have now though.

If it were up to you, then, there would be near zero PvP participation.

Every move closer to this forum-grognard "ideal" has led to immediate PvP participation collapse.

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Legion PvP was the best iteration of competitive PvP so far in WoW. Stat templates were good.

Lolno.

Templates were actually worse than the previous system. We did the whole thing with math here in this forum. After the average iLevel hit ~870, it template system generated a bigger stat differential than the split between Honor and Conquest gear, and it only got bigger as the xpac went on.

Add to that that Artifact boosts were multiplicative and added AFTER the templates, and it was a goddamn shit show.

Participation was low because most players in WoW are PvE players, so they don't really care about competitive PvP.

Partcipation in casual PVP shouldn't have suffered then. But it utterly collapsed. Because there was no carrot to chase.

And, FWIW, participation in PvP has always been higher than PvE. Prior to the removal of the achievements used to track it (25k honor per season, 25k Conquest per season), nearly 50% of the player base (around 48% +/-) did enough PvP to get the 25k Honor achievement (a full set of honor gear +), and ~15% (higher when it was the only way to get weapons, way lower when it wasnt) did the Conquest achievement. And of the people earning the Conquest achievement, nearly 70% did so WITHOUT EVER DOING AN ARENA GAME. Meaning they did it casually doing daily first-win in random BGs and shiz. (I was one of thse people. I got a full conquest set every xpac it was available to do so via non-Arena sources).

Competitive PvP in WoW has NEVER mattered. Why they insist on balancing around it has always beggared the imagination.

And yeah, scaling is good. Oneshotting people is not fun at all, and dying instantly is not fun either.

No, it isnt. Proper gearing and lowering the iLevel spread for the entire expansion to not have massive mudflation is, and always has been, the answer.

A single tier should not span 50 iLevels. Ever. Thats just shit game design and always was.

Also, given that ever since.. Lich King you have been able to get a set of Honor gear that is only one step below the Conquest Gear (and in TBC you could get everything but a weapon and head); at least until MoP, and then back to that in WoD, until the debacle that was Legion and Beta For Azeroth) easily - in all cases WITHOUT EVEN PvPing - the only excuse you have for entering a BG and getting blown out is because you didn't pay attention to the gearing options that Blizzard offered you.

The systems were there. If you were too dumb to use them, thats not Blizards fault.

[Destructodave]

You lost all sense of gear and character progression with PvP scaling.

I actually believe PvP scaling is one of the worst systems WoW ever had. It sounds nice from a top tier competitive standpoint, but this is WoW. Its an MMO, where character and gear progression permeates all parts of the game, and PvP scaling completely went against everything the game is supposed to be about.

I hated it. Its one of the reasons I didnt play much in BFA. Its no surprise that PvP participation took a nose dive starting Legion when these equalizing mechanics started to take place. In the end WoW is an MMO and character progression is a large part of the reason you even play the game. If you want super competitive, balanced PvP, play LoL/Dota/CS:Go, etc. Hell, go play GW where they have the exact systems your asking for as a PvP player. Baseline gear.

Gear not mattering sounds all well and nice, but in practice its horrible. Because again, this is an MMO, and building your character is the main driving force behind everything, PvP included. And spending all your time PvPing to not even feel an upgrade when you get it, felt awful. At least back in the day, I would create an alt. I would push as far as I could with that alt until my opponents were at a skill level that their gear could beat me down. I would then go, "Next week when I get 2-3 more pieces, I'll be able to beat those guys." Even that small amount of progression and carrot was better than initially realized. You dont realize what your missing until its not there. Did I cuss during those times, becuase I was undergeared? I did. But, in hindsight, it felt so good to have a carrot and to be able to get that carrot and for that carrot to matter. It doesnt in the current system.

PvP scaling ruined all sense of character progression, gear progression, and generally made BGs feel like crap, too.

[Nerovar]

I think the script goes something like this (guesstimating years):
2010 Community: We want to feel our gear upgrades, make them matter more!
2015 Community: Gear makes too much of a difference in PvP, it's not fun when people are so much more powerful just because they can play more!
2018 Community: Scaling killed PvP, plz fix your shit game and start listening to us!!!!!111one

Implying these were the same people. Complains about "gear matters too much in PvP" always came from people who didn't actually play PvP. Catering to those people killed off participation.

In short: you're wrong.

[Th3Scourge]

Why did they ever change from the TBC pvp system? It was by far the best in way of gearing and in execution, with saving arena points to buy you gear based on rating etc and only pvp gear having resilience

[Kagthul]

Why did they ever change from the TBC pvp system? It was by far the best in way of gearing and in execution, with saving arena points to buy you gear based on rating etc and only pvp gear having resilience

Id actually say that (not the gear itself, the system) WoD had probably the best system.

Someone doing rated PvP would get their gear very quickly, the full Conquest set, but even casuals could, eventually, get the entire Conquest set.

And you could get your Conquest cap in a number of ways.

[schwank05]

If it were up to me gear would not play any part in arena or battlegrounds at all. Everyone would have the exact same item level and there would be a stat template for each class. I would take classic no scaling over the inconsistent and unexplained garbage scaling we have now though.

I can get behind the no scaling thing, but without gear there is no reason to play PVP I think PVP was perfect in BC.

[FelPlague]

I was just watching Madseason's video on balance and i was just wondering, how is it that they thought it would be a good idea to nerf max ilvl characters when fighting fresh 120s?

Do people actually think this is fun?
I for one used to enjoy playing bgs and oneshotting people and on the other side i was expecting to get oneshotted as a fresh max lvl and tried my best to be more of a CC support in bgs.

Again i have no idea if this thread was discussed nowadays but it's just a question. Do people enjoy this type of balance or would u prefer the Classic type when u can oneshot people ?

Because players said they wanted things to be balanced, that they wanted pvp to be about skill, not about whoever nolifed the most high ilvl gear.


do you want pvp to be about skill? well then scaling is a good thing.
you want pvp to be about whoever has the most time to no-life spam the best ilvl gear? then scaling is not for you.


what you want is an unfair scenario of pvp where you want to be able to 1 shot people who may be better then you but dont have the time to farm, what most people wanted was a skill based scenario where things were fair.

[RoKPaNda]

I can get behind the no scaling thing, but without gear there is no reason to play PVP I think PVP was perfect in BC.

Which PvP was perfect in BC?

Battlegrounds?

World PvP that was absolute shit for everyone involved due to arena gear? People talk about flying killing world PvP but the worst thing ever was arena gear. You had one person in arena gear and they were invincible. You had multiple people in arena gear and world PvP took 40 years.

Arena? Because let me tell you, several seasons of spamming hamstring while chasing a druid around a pillar for 40 minutes wasn't perfect or fun.

[schwank05]

Which PvP was perfect in BC?

Battlegrounds?

World PvP that was absolute shit for everyone involved due to arena gear? People talk about flying killing world PvP but the worst thing ever was arena gear. You had one person in arena gear and they were invincible. You had multiple people in arena gear and world PvP took 40 years.

Arena? Because let me tell you, several seasons of spamming hamstring while chasing a druid around a pillar for 40 minutes wasn't perfect or fun.

All of the above I loved all aspects of PVP in BC and for most of Wrath. I loved Arena in BC, never really had any interest in it after that.

[Arainie]

Implying these were the same people. Complains about "gear matters too much in PvP" always came from people who didn't actually play PvP. Catering to those people killed off participation.

In short: you're wrong.

Why do you think I wrote "Community"?
It's always the loudest that are heard the most. That's why listening to the loudest feedback and granting players what "they ask for" is useless.

In short: I'm not.