In your opinion, why is PvP decreasing in popularity

[Glorious Leader]

As it stands PvE content is complex and bloated as fuck. Bosses have too many abilities and playing your characther is complex as fuck. Now imagine that but instead of scripted events you add an element of randomization. i.e pvp is not scripted and requires more coordination than mythic raid encounters.

[erifwodahs]

First reason is just how different my class is in PvP than PvE - each skill/talent has pvp specific tuning, you also play different talents and on top of that have PvP talents which you will only ever use in PvP. I CBA to learn all that and then learn what other classes can do, because again, you can't learn about them by just doing a dungeon. Utility/CC/defensive bloat complicates it even further - if I need to spend 500 hrs before I can start predicting my opponents moves, I just won't. I can see how it can be very satisfying for a seasoned veterans, it would be for me too, but getting to that point is just too much effort for occasional game here and there.

Second big reason - players. There are some people who can do witty shit talk and there are some people who stopped developing their vocab in their teen years. I get it, there are some unhinged players in PvE, but PvP has some really deranged individuals. I'm a man in my 30s, most "it's just a trash talk bro" dudes are just making me lose brain cells from reading their middle school level "trash talk", not even talking about self proclaimed BG leaders who always seem to be on a brink of an aneurism.

[kranur]

Simply put, it's too complex and boring at the same time.
You have to put in dozens and dozens of hours to get going and at the end of that you get chasing someone around a pillar and mashing on them for 20 minutes.
If tanks and healers were removed it could be fun, but they need to pretend it's an esport.

[Sanguinerd]

Too complex for new people to jump into
Too much gatekeeping at the top
Premade plague in random pvp
Garbage match-making in rated pvp

It just gets tedious and its not worth it. So then it becomes a "why bother?" when you can so easily pick up other games and have more fun with less bullshit.

edit: Also imo class-kits do not match the class fantasy anymore. A dps class like a hunter shouldn't have an immunity, dispells or insane amount of self-heal. Its just stupid. Healers shouldn't be immortal either but those dumb class chances all lead back to arena and mythic plus where classes are required to do this shit but it doesn't work in regular pvp.

[PenguinChan]

People just don't care for unorganized, unfair, redundant, unimpactful and unbalanced gameplay. It's still fun for some but even those who love PvP aren't even doing it anymore these days, the old servers and versions included. It's just... A waste of time for a lot of people, where they feel their time and effort is wasted with nothing to gain from the wins or losses. And there are better MMORPG's out there for PvP as well - if you care more for balance than just being able to fight people in your favorite MMO.

Not really sure what can be done about it honestly. Even if they perfectly balance PvP, implement premade class kits and normalized gear (made it redundant) it still wouldn't be enjoyable for a lot of people. Old PvP was like an Ouroboros. You gear up because you die too fast, so eventually you end up being able to live and make an impact - until you get good enough gear where you're actually a threat. Then you start to gank-smash anyone not at your gear level, and fight others at equal gear level sometimes. Rinse and repeat every character / season.

PvP was at its highest popularity when the latter system was there. It was more frustrating to play, less newbie friendly yet it somehow retained way more players than it does now. Dunno what that says about the target audience and those who enjoy PvP for different reasons.

[meheez]

I wouldn't know since I like and play it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You can only play this mediocre pseudo action game in 10 vs 10 on the same decade+ old maps against the same classes over and over for so many years before it gets old. WoW's instanced rated PvP does not have the friendship formenting experience or the stakes of waging a war and fighting for territory in open world PvP like in DaoC or WAR or GW2's WvW. People who want action game PvP migrated to better action games.

[Nightshade711]

I miss being able to blacklist BGs. My experience so far in Blitz on CTF maps ends up just being "which team has the most mobility" unless you get the rare unicorn team that knows how to play against a mobile EFC.

It just isn't personally fun most of the time for me on either end.

[exochaft]

edit: Also imo class-kits do not match the class fantasy anymore. A dps class like a hunter shouldn't have an immunity, dispells or insane amount of self-heal. Its just stupid. Healers shouldn't be immortal either but those dumb class chances all lead back to arena and mythic plus where classes are required to do this shit but it doesn't work in regular pvp.

That's probably a big factor, when abilities get spread out too much and things get homogenized like crazy. Additionally, Blizz has a long history of over-complicating things in the name of balance, or focusing too much on balance to where the fun gets sucked out or the systems get so bloated and convoluted that no one is having fun.

I'll give an example of PvP balance that worked fine in its initial state but got convoluted every time Blizz tried to fix a problem that wasn't there: druid shapeshifting to remove snares/roots. Back in vanilla, shapeshifting cost a pretty significant amount of mana, so while you could spam shapeshifting you'd go OOM really fast, either leaving you no option to stay in a form or being stuck in caster form. Over time, the mana cost for shapeshifting got reduced or just disappeared, and suddenly druids could just break snares/roots infinitely... which was a problem of Blizz's own making. I've lost track of all the methods they tried to fix the issue they made themselves, but it got to the point where they even removed the ability to remove snares/roots by shapeshifting, effectively removing one of the perks of being a druid. The irony was that their first version was likely the best: you can have a powerful ability, but it comes at a huge cost and can't be used thoughtlessly, but Blizz just complicated themselves.

Suppose on a more general topic another issue was Resilience and the like systems to make PvP gear more attractive for PvP. I lost track of how many times they adjusted and revamped Resilience in TBC alone, but Blizz could never really nail this down because they were always trying to find the perfect solution... and ended up just making more problems every time they did. I think it ultimately boils down to Blizz trying to implement to ideas that run in opposition: the best gear for your preferred end game should come from that end game content, and you should be able to play any end game content with gear from any end game content. Without getting into the weeds over how many different approaches Blizz took, they just over-complicated the hell of out everything in the name of trying to accommodate both ideas.

If anything, what really sucks the fun out of PvP (or any WoW content) is when Blizz tries too hard to balance it. Blizz has a storied history of trying to find solutions to their current problems but forgetting they solved them in the past. Don't know if it's turnover issues or just tunnel vision (or just plain hubris), but this is an aspect of Blizz that has not changed in years.

[vilememory]

[Ashana Darkmoon]

If anything, what really sucks the fun out of PvP (or any WoW content) is when Blizz tries too hard to balance it. Blizz has a storied history of trying to find solutions to their current problems but forgetting they solved them in the past. Don't know if it's turnover issues or just tunnel vision (or just plain hubris), but this is an aspect of Blizz that has not changed in years.

You hear this a lot and it makes little sense. Would you say that League and Valorant, two of the most popular pvp games in history, are comically imbalanced and Riot just leaves them that way because it is "fun"? Because my understanding is that the devs make consistent tweaks like any other game. Is there a widely popular game where devs just "leave it alone" even once the meta is figured out and everyone is playing the same class/character all the time?

[Kagthul]

You hear this a lot and it makes little sense. Would you say that League and Valorant, two of the most popular pvp games in history, are comically imbalanced and Riot just leaves them that way because it is "fun"? Because my understanding is that the devs make consistent tweaks like any other game. Is there a widely popular game where devs just "leave it alone" even once the meta is figured out and everyone is playing the same class/character all the time?

Rainbow 6 & Counterstrike spring immediately to mind.

Most other competitive mil-sim dirt brown shooters before the rise of “seasonal” Battle Royales.

StarCraft (one of the biggest eSports ever).

Hell even League and DOTA arent great examples, as the main reason they iterate is because they add new champions and therefore, balance gets altered. In older seasons, there might have been a single patch during the whole season, after a new champions introduction.

However, your argument is entirely based on a flawed premise.

“PvP” is not a genre.

Its an activity type within a game. It otherwise needs to be the same game that people want to play.

In an MMO, that means progression and power rewards.

Every single time they move closer to “there is no gear” or “gear doesnt matter in PvP”, PvP participation drops.

During Legion, when templates existed and only your raw iLevel mattered (which you could get from anywhere), PvP particpiation dropped NINETY PERCENT.

Nine. Zero. (At the end of a season, the nature of the rewards system - a pyramidal ladder - means you can math out the exact number of people on the laddder.). And that was vs the last season of Warlords; it was over a 95% drop off from the first Warlords season.

And participation in Warlords was already well below the average (70% of the average of the previous two expansions). And that was when way more people (6x+ as many) did PvP as their primary end-game activity than did end-game PvE (even AFTER the introduction of LFR).

Its an MMO, not a shooter or MOBA. It needs rewards and power progression, or people will not participate. Plain and simple.

[FAILoZOFF]

I still enjoy WoW PvP in classic (tbc-mop), just have 0 desire of playing it it on retail. There is waaay to much sht going on to keep track of what's happening aaand it just looks terrible and cluttered to no end.
Classic PvP has its own problems like no "solo q" rated arenas or rbgs and long gearing up/professions for pvp aaand theres this F PvE gear crap demolishing balance with legendaries and pve trinkets/set bonuses.

- - - Updated - - -

During Legion, when templates existed and only your raw iLevel mattered (which you could get from anywhere), PvP particpiation dropped NINETY PERCENT.

That's funny cause it was WoD that was the most "egalitarian" about it's PvP settig and not Legion despite the second having templates... that scaled with ilvl, legiondaries and artifact power grind. WoD just had PvP gear that was easy and very fast to obtain in Ashran and there was also catch-up going on so if you went hard and were lucky with warfirges you could have char just few ilvls off people that played from the start.

[ThatsOurEric]

PvP should be decided by player skill, knowledge of the game, and most importantly,
teamwork.

PvP gear as well as a stat that is enhanced in PvP throws all of this out the window
because instead, games are decided by which side has the better geared.

No one likes being in a BG where you die instantly and you burn every cooldown
you have and barely do any damage. Why would this person ever want to do PvP
at that point.

[Sanguinerd]

PvP should be decided by player skill, knowledge of the game, and most importantly,
teamwork.

Disagree. Gear should matter TO A DEGREE. Part of the game is gearing and if I or you spend a lot of time gearing your character it SHOULD be stronger than someone who does not or someone who's recently dinged etc.

Having a powerful character is a core fundamental of the game as it should be.

That said I do think that Blizzard doesn't do PvP gearing correctly and would like to see a change.

[Mojo03]

Personally I'm on the team that thinks gear is the biggest issue in pvp popularity

PVP should be 100% skill based with no numerical advantages and have a low barrier to entry

Maybe a compromise on gear is everyone has the same ilvl and vers, but you unlock gear with different itemization with honor, rather than higher ilvl gear

Then the disparity isn't so extreme starting out and there's room to grow for min/maxers that

[Nerovar]

Gear mattering in PvP is fine but the process of gearing itself seems needlessly complicated. It's not just that you need to farm a full set of conquest, if you want BiS you need to actually craft several pieces in the correct slots for better stat distribution (two of which have to have the right embellishments) and you have to double check the slots because adding set bonus to your gear will once again change your stats, add 9 sockets to your gear and fill them with gems, enchant 7 items + get weapon enchants... it's a lot and it will cost you a decent amount of gold as well (which is usually pretty sparse for PvP players unless you're boosting people). There's always going to be things people do at the high end to optimize their character and get an edge in PvP (I remember people running mythic raid rings in WoD PvP) but this seems like a system in need of streamlining.

Also premade groups in random battlegrounds seem really common now. Probably not a fun experience for the average joe.

First reason is just how different my class is in PvP than PvE - each skill/talent has pvp specific tuning, you also play different talents and on top of that have PvP talents which you will only ever use in PvP. I CBA to learn all that and then learn what other classes can do, because again, you can't learn about them by just doing a dungeon. Utility/CC/defensive bloat complicates it even further - if I need to spend 500 hrs before I can start predicting my opponents moves, I just won't. I can see how it can be very satisfying for a seasoned veterans, it would be for me too, but getting to that point is just too much effort for occasional game here and there.

This is a good point. Between your stats getting scaled up and all of your talents and abilities having hidden PvP modifiers, everything feels very obfuscated. CD bloat is also real but that seems more of an issue with overall class design philosophies.

[khazlol]

If pvp dies when reward is removed then maybe the problem is pvp.

[Nerovar]

If pvp dies when reward is removed then maybe the problem is pvp.

I bet more people would play PvP without any rewards than they would PvE without rewards.

[Meowtwo]

No rewards is a big part, we are driven as a playerbase by rewards, and the only one you get from pvp is the mog set and if you are super good the mounts. Other then that its rating. If Raids/m+ didnt drop loot the participation would drop massively (which you can easily see with high m+ keys, very very few do the extra push without the reward)

Barrier of entry is another, Weak Auras and other addons are super opressive, they take forever to set up (and you need to know about them), without them its almost impossible to tell what is going on.

But i think lack of reward is the big thing.