FYI: Threads in Arena Official Forums are HOT right now

[Nuba]

WoW PvP participation dropped drastically from Legion S1 to Legion S2 despite S2 being 4/3s of the duration of S1.
50% drop in alliance participation (the biggest drop in WoW history)
30% drop in horde participation (the second biggest drop in WoW history)

Feel free to lol a little:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/1011696/

This one is actually my favorite:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20754075338

[rda]

WoW PvP participation dropped drastically from Legion S1 to Legion S2 despite S2 being 4/3s of the duration of S1.
50% drop in alliance participation (the biggest drop in WoW history)
30% drop in horde participation (the second biggest drop in WoW history)

ROFLMAO

Epic.

No, noone saw it coming. Absolutely noone. Nuh-uh.

Now, seriously. It's time for someone to retire and his name starts with H and ends with olinka.

[Trollfat]

So Blizzard removes the rewards from an activity that wasn't fun to begin with and people stop participating in it? Shocker.

[Matthias]

So Blizzard removes the rewards from an activity that wasn't fun to begin with and people stop participating in it? Shocker.

"Players go where the gear is" This is something Blizzard said before WoTLK launched. A lot of players did Arena but didn't raid because Arena was an easy way to get good quality gear. Therefore they made raiding more accessible.

Now PvP is a very insufficient way to get gear, or at least the gear you want. It also doesn't even make you any better in PvP. On top of which the gear is just a reskin. Imo the scaling method they had in WoD was perfect and just could have been tweeked. Even if I wasn't going for high PvP ranks I would always get PvP gear because it's what I would wear when out in the World in case some sucker ever wanted to try me, with it being more effective in PvP.

Also templates while making balance easier, just aren't suited for an MMO. If I get a new trinket or weapon I wanna go into a BG and hit someone with it, not just scale up by .1%

[Cempa]

The great majority of players have a limited number of hours to play WoW ... Legion made it so the most effective way to spend those minutes in PvE and buying boosts -be it a +15 weekly or Heroic Raid also weekly.

Gearing from PvP is not an option today so why play it?!

Can we please NOW get rid of the new PvP team???? Go back to the old and tested please ... And for the love of sanity take Holinka job away ...

[Shraug]

Gearing from PvP is not an option today so why play it?!

If you had asked this 2 expansions ago I would say because people enjoy arena and rbgs... however, I cannot vouch for those activities today. Not sure why lead devs keep dodging the question of "why did you prune all of our abilities", but they always do. Except for the one time where Holinka slipped up in an interview in WoD and said that it was so players wouldn't have to think as hard/much and wasn't so intricate... ?????????????? Like dude that's what makes PvP GOOD.

[Nerovar]

Yeah, the forums are lit fam.
I particularly enjoy threads like this:
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615441659

[dreamdaddy]

Not that AP matters as much anymore after people get their new golden traits, but RBGs and Arenas are definitely the best places to farm AP now. A night of doing competitive PvP yields 3-4x as much AP as a night of doing M+ carries. Also the s3 elite sets look amazing for most classes so hopefully there will be more activity as people try to get their sick xmogs.

It is sad that only 6 people in NA got Hero of the Alliance last season because participation was so low.

[Azzurri]

Yeah, the forums are lit fam.
I particularly enjoy threads like this:
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615441659

Reminds me of Mean Girls. "Stop trying to make Fetch happen, it's never gonna happen". It's the same with WoW PvP and eSports, it just isn't a spectator sport like FPS or MOABS. WoW is just too convoluted, they would need to remove another 10-15 spells from each class and telegraph each one so the casual eSport fan would know what the hell is going on.

[Nerovar]

Reminds me of Mean Girls. "Stop trying to make Fetch happen, it's never gonna happen". It's the same with WoW PvP and eSports, it just isn't a spectator sport like FPS or MOABS. WoW is just too convoluted, they would need to remove another 10-15 spells from each class and telegraph each one so the casual eSport fan would know what the hell is going on.

Yeah, but if you'd really want to go through with this and reduce the gameplay to a few key abilities and teamplay aspects then you will more or less end up with a moba (except Mobas like Dota 2 are more than just death match and they still have things like items which have a meaningful impact on the game). I don't know. It's just so disappointing to see what they've done with class design and PvP this expansion.

[Stormspellz]

So Blizzard removes the rewards from an activity that wasn't fun to begin with and people stop participating in it? Shocker.

while I admit that is part of it, doesn't help the grind is worse then ever, classes are a shell of their former selves making the game play itself one dimensional and stale.

[Mafic]

Blizzard said PVP participation was "up"

But are they implying random BGs/skirmishes is seeing increased PVP participation?

Rated is declining fast based on these numbers.

[YourHeroVir]

Now PvP is a very insufficient way to get gear, or at least the gear you want.

PvP is an awful way to get gear as a fresh 110 right now. World Quests, LFR, and Nethershards all offer quicker upgrades and targeted upgrades in some cases. I need AP and Order resources as well, and the quickest way to get them isn't PvP.

PvP constantly gives me items I don't need, and only some of which can be obliterated.

If they want to fix it, PvP gear needs to be much better and more predictable. Even if you're using templates, PvPers need gear for World PvP.

I like the templates, and I like the PvP talents....but I hate the rewards from PvP.

Also, they never should have killed oQueue. It’s been two xpacs and looking for group still isn’t as good as oQueue was for finding arena partners.

[shoegazing]

Reminds me of Mean Girls. "Stop trying to make Fetch happen, it's never gonna happen". It's the same with WoW PvP and eSports, it just isn't a spectator sport like FPS or MOABS. WoW is just too convoluted, they would need to remove another 10-15 spells from each class and telegraph each one so the casual eSport fan would know what the hell is going on.

It infuriates me that they are trying to go this direction. Because the steps necessary to make it watchable for a casual viewer are absolutely destroying the gameplay itself.

Yeah I'm sure the changes to gear are part of the reason why your average joe casual spends less time queuing up. But that doesn't explain why the hardcore rated PvP is quitting in droves. Ability Pruning and dumbed down class design are the reasons for that.

They can make PvP easier to watch, but in doing so they are just making it boring to play.

[Wilfire]

Arena is only playable on the weekends unless you want to face the same DH / druid comp every game. No wonder people are quitting.

[rda]

Blizzard said PVP participation was "up"

But are they implying random BGs/skirmishes is seeing increased PVP participation?

Rated is declining fast based on these numbers.

They aren't implying anything.

Holinka lied.

As in, standing in a sea of declining characteristics he cherry picked a bogus metric with the result that was better than the others and pretended that this "shows" that things are fine. Yes, that's lying, I am using the word correctly.

[potis]

The 10 person still caring about arena pvp blaming the dev.

People dont PvP cause there is nothing to gain from it.

AP gain is low.

Gear is garbage.

Apart from 2 people i know that play (played) WoW specifically for Arena, the rest 40 people i know IRL that played WoW for a long period of time only PvPed to get alts geared up mid expansion.

Lets face it, it was the fastest way to get a decent item level without tryharding much.

Now that there is no gear gained, no one gives a fuck.

In other words, no reward, no play.

[ls-]

TBF, at this point I PvP to get only two things: 2k rating to buy elite gear ensemble, certain prestige levels, because some PvP skins/tints look cool (prot pala, frost/blood dk). I don't care about anything else anymore T_T

PvP in WoW suffers from being a side activity, which it is, characters' toolkits are designed w/ PvE in mind, no one is going to create a cool ability and then scrap it because it might be OP in PvP, it'll be added, but nerfed via templates, PvP only abilities are kinda cool, some are so cool that I wouldn't mind having them in my PvE life, e.g., it'd be nice to have BDK's Death Chains in M+, but they are few Pruning also happens cuz of PvE.

As for rated PvP, welp, I think it's no longer popular for a few reasons:

- There's proper PvP-oriented games w/ booming Pro scenes now, I mean, if one has necessary skills, then why even waste time being a WoW PvPer w/ no future? One can be a successful MOBA, FPS or CCG (Hearthstone) streamer or a pro-gamer or both instead?

- MOBAs spoiled many people, MOBAs rarely have any character power progression outside the match, and it helps to balance the game A LOT. But WoW is an MMORPG, it's not a MOBA, character power/gear progression is essential for this genre, but many PvPers don't enjoy or even hate it, some even call it unnecessary RPG shit, people want MOBA experience: maxed out artefacts, BiS gear, all PvP talents w/o any need to farm Prestige 1. But it's not gonna happen, and it shouldn't, if it happens, what's next? BiS gear for people who do only pet battles? BiS gear for raiders who only want to log in and raid?

And lastly, although I PvP quite a lot, obv casually, I have to say that WoW Arena as an eSport is meh, from spectators PoV it's quite underwhelming, there's nothing interesting in watching someone being chain CC'd and getting rekt, watching long matches w/ excessive pillar humping is quite annoying too...

[Myztikrice]

character power/gear progression is essential for this genre, but many PvPers don't enjoy or even hate it, some even call it unnecessary RPG shit, people want MOBA experience: maxed out artefacts, BiS gear, all PvP talents w/o any need to farm Prestige 1. But it's not gonna happen, and it shouldn't, if it happens, what's next? BiS gear for people who do only pet battles? BiS gear for raiders who only want to log in and raid?

There is no next. All you have to do is PvP because it's what other organized PvP games do. Other MMOs don't give you max gear when raiding so there's no reason to assume WoW should as a next logical step. Some things just end at one place.

[ls-]

There is no next. All you have to do is PvP because it's what other organized PvP games do. Other MMOs don't give you max gear when raiding so there's no reason to assume WoW should as a next logical step. Some things just end at one place.

There's next, give an inch and they'll take a mile. You're naive if you think that people wouldn't demand for maxed out gear for other side activities where only skill should matter if others were to get it too. There are enough hardcore raiders who dream about such type of raiding.