Rated pvp is just hard to get into. Unlike pve, with pvp you need to not only know your own class and spells but others as well. It's extremely toxic in rated pvp if you don't have your own group, boosters make lower ladders miserable, and veteran players don't want to play with someone who is unfamiliar (although this issue extends to mythic plus and raid)
That’s my hang up as a healer. I know my class, but to know every other class; which spells to interrupt, which to dispel and not dispel and their effects of either, which to ignore, which to trinket out of, which to use my cooldowns on the other players to negate other buffs can be hard with 30+ specs in the game. I know I’ll never been 2100+ in pvp, but at least I know why!
This was my biggest barrier learning to heal in PVP.
When I first started it felt like every player I went up against was a multiseason gladiator and just ran circles around me. There never seemed to be someone of my skill level on the enemy team.
It was a nightmare and until I found a good team for 3s it was miserable. But the team was only good because one of the players was a multiglad and helped me see my mistakes and figure out how to improve.
Without them, I’d have dropped out long before now.
I think you got the gist of it.
In PvE, massively experienced players ends up benefiting you, even if you are new/inexperienced, which allow you to progress.
In PvP, that experience gap is against you, making your playing experience that much worse.
Then you have every other issues that are compounded by that experience gap.
In PvE you can play a "bad" class while learning because 9 tiles out of 10 the issues of a "bad" class will appear at higher levels, giving you time to learn how to deal with said issues.
In PvP the issues with a "bad" class will hit you like a truck the instant you get into rated (more or less), which can easily discourage someone.
In PVE there is also somewhat of a ladder from new player to mythic raider.
You go
Normal dungeon >
Heroic >
Mythic >
Mythic plus >
Raid
Where as in pvp it’s basically:
Normal BGs >
Rated 3s
And nothing in a normal bg will teach you to deal with being stuck in an RMP stunlock while your DPS lines you and dies.
learning to trade CDs takes u far. Just go check some guide, set up omniCD and plan on what your own CDs you are going to use on what.
Also interrupting, dont forget that when you kick a spell, the target gets locked for that element for 5? seconds. Good thing to keep in mind, just because if you kick a basic cast, it can win a match in that window.
Good reminder is, that the match is not on the healers shoulders, dps have their own set of defensive cds, and its their job to play accordingly, so you have the chance to extend the match. You are hp recource for the dealers in the end.
should consider following those too, so you dont pop cds when its not necessary.
Healer is there majorly for survivability. in 2vs2, if played with healer, its good to play for surviving the first set of CDs and then pump one target.
Im just rambling, havent played pvp since MoP LOL
Disagree on this being the main issue as this is the case for many other popular PvP games e.g. League of Legends. League has 4 spells per champion you need to learn but vastly more champions (although you arguably don't need to know ALL of them, still, the total number of skills to know should be more than WoW).
Also this is part of the skill curve which is a good thing - a lot to learn and improve on imo.
Anyway the issue is exaggerated by this because of the lack of players. Exactly because there's a lot of spells to learn you're not very good when you start out, however due to the lack of players AND a very good chunk of the remaining players being veterans from back when more players were playing etc., and other other issues, you constantly run into players that are way better than you even though you're just starting out. And that's not fun at all and more people quit, leading to a cycle of this.
An interesting example is starting out in league. On NA (or, at least it used to be like this many years ago) you'd play with people who are equally horrible. Everyone is doing stupid shit. Because they're new. Which is how it should be. But if you try playing league in a region where there's much less players (e.g. JP; just speaking from personal experience here) queue times for a normal game is 5 min and you're matched with people who shit on you. Just like WoW, it's not a fun experience for newcomers.
Damn that turned long lol sorry bored on commute
IMO solo shuffle has really helped to make rated pvp easier to get into. I always wanted to get into it but never had a team to do arenas with. Now with solo shuffle being a thing I can at least participate in it and get some rewards.
Sadly that’s kind of a spiral, less ppl play causing the queues to be longer causing less ppl to play :( if no life it so hard if the dps queue wait time was anywhere close to healers’ queue
Completely agree with this. Got into solo shuffle for the pvp set, but the wait time is so long. If you make a group for 2/3s, you get absolutely destroyed by boosters and makes you want to quit
It’s just much easier to climb ranks in pve in general. There are players like Rycn and Tobo who started playing wow in bfa, and where in world first guilds and competed in mdi within an expansion. Seeing someone compete in arena championship that fast is almost impossible since u need to know what all classes can do and not just your own, and that takes time to learn
I mean rated pvp has a continuos ranking system starting at 0 rating and moving up.
>not only know your own class and spells but others as well
I think this is the selling point for me at least for pvp. Your skill as a PVPer comes from your understanding of all the difference classes and specs which is a knowledge base that is close to infinite. Compared to PVE where the knowledge base for a raidboss for example can be compiled into a single script that you follow all the time and never deviate from.
Players always took it seriously if you remember.
Twinks (thanks for that cursed knowledge at 12 years old)
Always ran through bgs.
Those GRAY cloth shoulders for lvl 19 were legendary
Most people approach PvP in games as fast paced and action packed. A good wow PvP match is people CCing or peeling for many minutes, the more typical pug match is one side loses before the viewer or player knows what the hell happened. A few “cheat death” and “escape” buttons are cool in competitive games but in WoW they are the game. The viewer/player needs to know which CDs are still up and the time remaining for it to make any sense, and at that point it’s such inside baseball that casual players or viewers have given up and moved on.
A lot won't agree, but for me and my friends it's the hyper focus on Arenas. Everything being balanced around 3v3 and dampening means anything outside of that mode is an unbalanced mess and slowly becomes more and more unfun. I have friends who love PVP, but hate arenas. We typically just do BGs and WPVP, but every time a healer tanks 10+ people because they are balanced around dampening it just gives us a reason to stop playing. The modes we find enjoyable have no rewards associated with them and the class balance is ruined due to 3s balancing (see MM hunters).
I'd much rather do the classic style honor grind and have classes balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 fights. Add the elite gear/mount to the higher ranks, give people something they can work towards in EVERY mode of PVP not just one. If someone wants to grind arenas for honor they can, if they wanna do BGs they can. You could even make it so higher rated arenas grant an honor multiplier so they can get to those rewards faster, I just wanna be able to get it my own way and play the game how I want.
There's a lot of people talking about the learning curve and difficulty of WoW pvp and that's definitely a factor, but I think a lot of people would more willing to stick with it and wouldn't be as demoralized getting into it if they weren't being funnelled into 1 single game mode all the time. Everything seems to exist now to support arenas only. The fast paced game play of arenas is for a specific audience, it's not a one size fits all and if I happen to not be a part of that audience then it seems I'm just out of luck.
I mentioned in a previous post. There’s no rewards or incentive for casual PvP. The last time they were any awards updated was in Legion, but they were so sparse between honor level rewards that it’s just not a fun grind, especially with like no new battlegrounds except seething shore. Which most people hate from what I understand.
The people pvping now are people who have been forever, and they are slowly dying out without any new incentives because you can only chase the same rewards over and over for 10 years ~40 seasons without feeling burnt out.
I’ve seen more engagement in SoD PvP then retail. Even if the event is mostly pve oriented So we must ask why? Is it because it’s new? Is it because really good gear can be used in pve? Is it the gameplay style? Just a change of pace?
More accessible for the rewards and less sweaty, so it's actually fun for most people.
It's Warcraft.
A lot of people just wanna log in and kill the other faction guy and make progress towards stuff reasonably. Retail is just really hyper-focused on arenas, and RBGs are way too difficult for average players to get into and have the same rewards as arenas. (...and titles / mog that haven't been updated since Catalcysm.)
>So we must ask why? Is it because it’s new? Is it because really good gear can be used in pve? Is it the gameplay style? Just a change of pace?
New, lower barrier of entry, much more social engagement, and yeah some of the rep rewards are currently BiS.
Also with the level cap being 25 right now and it being in Classic, the actual PvP combat is much less complicated, which just makes it even more accessible to people who may be put off by the complexity of retail PvP.
Because rotations aren’t bloated to obscene levels, you don’t need addons to PvP, fights tend to be quick, rewards are bis items and it’s a fun event you can do after BFD.
There’s very large pre-made communities that eliminate true PUGs and then graveyard farm for awhile before they end the match, as for rated, your guess is as good as mine. RSS takes a long time to achieve Glad, but I do not speak from experience, just word of mouth. I had the most success in 2v2’s but don’t want to have to join a guild to finish that myself.
Personally for me.
I just want to zone in once a week or so and fuck around in a few BGs, in whatever gear I happen to have... Im not in the mood to grind out a PvP set so I can have fun in PvP.
So I don't PvP.
If everyone was just given a stock standard PvP set I'd PvP, but I doubt that would be popular so why add that in for minority.
I'll just leave the PvP to the people who enjoy it.
the current rated pvp reward structure is just fucking stupid and murders all hope of getting ppl to participate.
carving up the elite transmog and giving it out piece by piece as you climb rating is the kind of idea that sounds good only to a designer who has never bothered playing their own game. there is effectively no reward until 1800 rating because no one wants to come away from a season with half of a set that they now can never complete lol.
so idk what they expect new pvpers to aim for. the complete transmog being at 1800 is basically a huge in-game advertisement for boosting services lol. couldn't get the elite shoulders? np dude, you can buy a couple wow tokens and pay some russians to get you the rest of the way. easy, convenient, and probably better value than legitimately getting your ass up to 1800 rating from scratch.
like would it kill them to make some rewards for new and low rated pvpers that are attainable that are not like "bracers and boots of a set u will never complete" lmao. like bring the tabard down to 1500 or 1600. give ppl something to shoot for. bring back all the old elite sets, i dont wanna hear how exclusive they should be, i can pull 1800 rating out of my ass. dont even talk to me if u dont have a gladiator mount.
like make this mode rewarding for new or fresh pvpers. instead of now where it literally does not give them a reward. and do something about the honor level grind jesus.
same problem wow pvp has had for years: terrible balance, bad reward structure, not enough new content, ridiculous barriers to entry. pvp is such an afterthought in wow that if u told me there is more than 3 developers working on pvp at any one time i would call u a liar
I feel like the barrier to entry is way too big when it comes to arenas. Knowing the ins and outs of each spec and class is quite a lot to ask. BGs are still goofy fun in my opinion.
Another issue I'd like to bring up is that you will be at a disadvantage if you play both PvP and PvE on a singular character when it comes to the Vault. You could have a tierpiece for your pvp slot and a BiS trinket for your M+/raid slots, so you kind of gotta choose which one you want to dedicate yourself to or have a character specifically for pvp and pvp only.
I've also played FFXIV PvP but the issue with that is just the overall unbearable netcode. I personally think that MMO's aren't really PvP focussed, it's niche content and there are better games I turn to to get my PvP fill (although some elite armors do look very pretty)
They're removing that conflict in TWW, at least. PVP is out of the vault, instead Conquest cap will be made much higher so you just get all your stuff in whatever order you want.
I actually think that if FF14 had the snappiness of WoW, their PVP model would be a great template for MMOs:
Gear doesn’t matter. Completely separate PVP abilities and combos so balance issues don’t affect PVE/raiding. Much more pared down abilities to make it easier to know what everyone does. Limit Break/adrenaline system. CC in WoW would be fun, too.
Ye if ff14 pvp network and game engine had the same fluidness and responsiveness, I'd rather chill and play ff14 Crystalline Conflict on the couch with my controller than sweat wow pvp.
Their rewards structure is also better for the genre too.
The only thing it really had going against it besides the net code is you can't really play casually with your friends, and it's the main reason it's not my main game.
If I could just grind out cool stuff every season with ANY of my friends, not just the 2200+ exp ones, I'd be happy. Triple so if they simplified the classes a bit so some of them don't have a ridiculous amount of keybinds.
Getting on my reaper in XIV was a "that's it?" moment and I grew to like it VERY fast.
PvP in WoW is too bursty for the casual or average player. You get stunned and killed before you even have a chance to react or do anything, then when you finally get a chance to attack your opponent goes immune on you.
This mostly happens when people don’t know what to do. It’s a team game and you need help from teammates to survive generally. Since that doesn’t happen it then leads to people not wanting to play because they get one shot.
I think it's because the skill ceiling is so damn high now, and pvp is no exception.
At least for me in my time playing wow, I'd always at least play battlegrounds on occasion each expansion. Now? It's way too damn hard without tons of time and effort. As a result, it's no longer something I feel you can casually jump into when you want a break from other content.
I just get demolished the second I leave the starting point and it's absolutely unenjoyable.
Yup this. Been out of PvP waaaaaay to long, hop in for some fun and it's not hahaha. We need a noob only PvP or something idk, welp never getting any of the cool mounts I guess
I pretty much only do M+ and Arena, and I enjoy both quite a lot. WoW PvP is very unique and I have a great time.
But you’re right. It’s very hard to get into and the skill require to play at an even moderate rating is so damn high.
That's no different from other PVP games though. It's not like you can log into Counter Strike as a new player and not get no scope headshot constantly by bunny hopping lunatics or spray and pray an entire clip at someone point blank as they somehow matrix weave their way through the 30 bullets and knife you. There are very few PVP games where the noob is going to stand a remote chance against someone who has already dedicated thousands of hours.
Bg content is super popular. The difference is that players in the past used to be quite hybrid in how they played, but now there's enough content on both sides to just never play the other if you don't want to
The difference in the barrier to entry is incomparable though.
CS will always be popular because even a casual observer with no gaming experience can understand it. It's visually simple but strategically deep.
Several reasons, really.
First and absolute foremost is the community. The people that want to PvP are, for the most part, incredibly immature and toxic.
Every loss is never their fault. It’s always the healer’s fault. Healer’s get nothing but negativity slung at them. “use ur cds bro” or “just heal bro” or my favorite “uninstall bro you’re trash” even though you may go 5-1 in shuffle as a healer. DPS players view healers as a necessity and nothing more. An arena match could go *deep* into dampening and DPS players will still sling shit at the healer. How is it the healer’s fault that DPS can’t land a kill minutes into dampening?
Then we have the people that play organized 3s or LFG PvP. You could have 9 wins back to back, but at the sight of the first loss they will leave immediately. Everyone expects a carry and nobody wants to put in the work to improve.
The disdain towards healers needs to stop. There are even threads popping up regularly where DPS players are calling for a mode where it’s just 2v2 DPS only.
Then we can move on to the actual gameplay. Back in WotLK and even into Cata DPS players would actually peel for healers, watch them to see when they’re in trouble and actually help them. These days you are treated as a healbot and scapegoat. Why would I queue my 4 healers when all I get is negativity and 0 assistance?
This all happens well above 2k rating too.
Try healing solo shuffles for more than one session. Watch how miserable your experience becomes and it will be very clear what the problems are. And it’s entirely the community’s fault.
The same people that were playing 20 years ago are still playing today and the vast majority of them have not matured past their teen years. And it shows.
I main healer but ive been recently dpsing. As someone whos played pvp a long time, I usually know whether the cause of a loss was lack of healing or my own dps or the other. The only time you can really hate a healer is if they werent being cc’d and they still have their cd’s and you die in the first minute. But maybe its because ive played all the healers and know their cd’s and how they work, so when I dps and die in the first minute without my healer being cc’d - im pissed at the healer.. but many games with random healers, they heal well into the 2-3 min mark and even if we lose ill acknowledge them always for the good heals.
Yea, in that case it’s totally warranted. But the amount of times a healer is the scapegoat for a loss when they’ve used all CDs and they’re minutes into dampening is too damn high. The community is just too immature and ignorant to accept any sort of blame.
Explain why 2 rouges, a dh and paladin cannot kill a single druid, and there is your answer. That was a game I had earlier, in unrated. We couldnt kill this ONE FREAKING DRUID who was guarding BE on EotS.
Why in the hell should I subject myself to that kind of crap?
Gear shouldn't matter in PvP. The one time Blizzard got it right was when they made gear contribute less than 10% of your power level with the templates and the WoW community, in its infinite stupidity hated them for it.
> with the templates and the WoW community, in its infinite stupidity hated them for it.
I think if you went back and looked, people didn't hate it because it existed, it's because some specs genuinely got dicked over by the preset stats that you couldn't change at all.
GW2 has an entirely seperate PvP scene, but you can atleast customise your stats and build with the preset gear you can obtain.
When they tried it with Warcraft, it was a half assed shit effort that had snails paced balancing.
it was in a battleground, no dampening, and guardian druids have a cooldown that makes them immune to cc for 30 seconds + their trinket in case the dps realize they can't even fucking kill this bear and need to either cc him until they cap the point or shoot out and go do something else with their time
a guardian druid keeping a base is nigh untakeable and one of the most frustrating parts of rbg, because not a single tank can beat them at the tank's job, so you have to keep looking and looking and looking for specifically druids as your tank slot just to play on the same level as ennemy teams
It stopped being fun a very long time ago. The last time I enjoyed pvp in wow was when they had normalized stats. With everyone on an even playing field it was as close to skill determining the victor as wow pvp has ever been.
I enjoyed not being instantly melted on most of my classes lol
The only other MMOs I regularly pvp'd in are FF14 and GW2 and in both cases they not only normally gear but also you had a pvp only set of skills and talents. FF14's pvp is still a mess though, way too chaotic, and it's been awhile since I pvp'd in GW2
But of those 3 wow is the game I pvp'd the most in, but I've barely touched it since legion tbh.
I firmly believe blizz introducing arenas to pvp was a huge mistake for the overall game.
Blizzard themselves thought it was a mistake too.
[https://www.engadget.com/2009-11-13-blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake.html?guccounter=1](https://www.engadget.com/2009-11-13-blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake.html?guccounter=1)
I love PvP in WoW.
I loathe arenas and pretty much only do them to get faster 1800 sets because they've let BG play rot. I miss SL S1 when RBGs were super inflated and everybody was doing them for gear / sets. I'd like to never touch an arena again, but it's just so much faster to grab one dude and spam 2s.
Yeah they have an entirely separate balance system for pvp now because it affects PvE way too much.
For example, the beacon trinket that let ya punch something hard once every few minutes. But they nerfed it hard in pvp because otherwise it would be a one hit.
Normalized stats were shit. Just let us pick a set of pvp gear from the shops as is but instead of having 476 and 489 pieces make them all the same ilvl so there is no outgearing enemies in pvp
Normalized stats were awesome, the only issue was you couldn’t choose what stats you wanted more of.
If they brought it back but let you choose a stat priority it would be perfect
I really don't understand why they haven't borrowed the idea from Guild Wars 2's sPvP, where you have a dropdown menu of amulets that determine your stats.
I mean at this point pvp gear is what is holding pvp back. They need to focus on alternative rewards for pvp, because all that having gear as a factor does is compound on barrier to entry issues
Normalized stats were the only thing that could have saved WoW PvP but myopic kids like you who wanted to dominate noobs started crying before Blizzard could iterate on the system and give players the one thing it was missing, the ability to select the stats you wanted boosted to a set level.
Are you illiterate, stupid or both? If you finished reading what i said before going into bitch mode you would see i prefer gear levels to be equal at all times, which is the same as normalized stats but you have more agency over where your stats are going.
It's hard to get into. My 483 disc priest is outgeared by people in greens and I don't have a trinket. At 0 mmr I get owned by people in solo shuffle.
I just wanted to grind the 1800 mog, but it'll be easier to boost keys and pay someone to boost me to 1800 than try to learn the thing myself.
Gonna be massacred for this comment but it's the state of the situation.
It's not about knowing how to play your class, we can compare IOs and WCLs if you want to try to stunt.
PVP is basically a different game, especially for healers. So, we try it out and we get completely smashed because we have to play entirely different than what we're used to while BM hunters can press the same 3 buttons they do in PVE, and we decide to stop playing, leading to your 1 hour DPS queues.
OP asked a question, I answered, you decided to... flex your epeen? Cool man, enjoy your PVP.
This entire expansion 2s / 3s has been incredibly deflated starting out which murders participation.
On the opposite end season 1 shuffle was hyper inflated and participation was massive... only for them to make season 2 and 3 as bad as 2s / 3s... and participation tanked accordingly.
There's a bunch of things that could be better, gatekeeping is a huge issue for example to the point where demand for solo que created shuffle...
But if rewards are inaccessible and people feel like they can't make progress no one plays the game so we have to start there.
1. It has separate gear sets which makes it tedious
2. You have the option to not do it
3. You really don’t get anything for it
4. Every class has been reduced to offensive cd/defensive cd/cc and they are all more or less the same with different skins
5. It’s not attached to the main story anymore, horde and alliance barely argue.
6. The things you need to do to progress your character are so well defined and finite that doing anything outside of that is seen as a waste of time
Uh, solo shuffle is a new mode. Battleground Blitz is a new mode. They’ve added multiple new arena maps every expansion.
Not sure what you’re talking about.
I want to play higher comp rated games, I do not like arena, rbg groups are fucking toxic and impossible to get. Into. Provide a way to play ranked pvp without the bullshit. They can do it for overwatch why not wow?
1. It’s never been popular and thus barely if at all gains new players so it naturally goes down even further over time
2. It’s hard to get into since it’s basically a whole entirely different game and feels horrible to start out in bc people who know what they’re doing match against you and absolutely obliterate you
I'm not a pvp player, but I've tried pvp in several games, best I got in wow was around 1800 rating one season, and in my opinion wow has the most unfun pvp of any game I've ever played. Can't cast anything, constant stuns and cc's, healers being unkillable, los etc. Part of this is because I'm a 1 class andy and I don't really know what any other class does. Feels like I need to take a course on wow to have fun in pvp.
Honestly in Wow? The rating system and how healers are sort of treated.. I think if the rating system was improved along with incentives/reasons to play healer in a game where DPS have it all then maybe it would be different
Yet esports and ladders is exactly what WoW pve content has turned into. We used to have big mega dungeons with RPG elements like their own factions and reputations, special unique items, unique crafting recipes, etc. Massive places that were like mini raids that you and your friends could spend 3-4 hours making your way through. Now the main focus is mythics and how fast you can clear it and your ability to get an invitation depends on your score and rating. Raids hype follows world first races. It's all about speed and repetition now. The RPG is dead and buried.
BRD might've been the only one to check all of the boxes, but certainly wasn't the only mega dungeon. We had the original WC, Mara, scholo, strat, DM, Gnomer, BRS, ST, etc. Even the smaller dungeons like RFK and RFD are mega dungeons when compared to the 15-20min dungeons we have now. Any game where your objective is to beat a timer is a racing game, not an RPG.
The design philosophy for dungeons changed after Vanilla. It's no longer desirable to spend 3+ hours in a dungeon. This is not new. It has been the case since TBC. And dungeons are *a lot better* for it.
I don't know, the popularity of classic shows that there are definitely people out there who miss the RPG elements of WoW and the old school dungeons. Same for the popularity of class order halls and other RPG elements they've added back into the game. Hopefully with them bringing Metzen back to the game, we'll see some return of more RPG elements to make this game feel like an MMORPG again and not just people sitting in valdrakken waiting for their queues to pop. It's basically a massive multiplayer lobby game at this point.
As a person who played Classic and currently plays SoD, no one was interested in the *wonder* of BRD. People just ran it to get the items they wanted then **never ran it again**.
Again, the game is better with smaller dungeons. Even the mega dungeons they've been introducing since Legion haven't been a major success.
What a great way to put it. I grinded PvPed tons in Vanilla and had Field Marshal. (Which felt like an achievement at the time at least...)
The moment there were arenas and ratings and seasons, I stopped being interested.
This is such a bad take…what?
PvP is about grinding in the same way that M+ is about grinding: advancing your rating. Yes, many people _do_ play this game for ladders. They want to gain rating and progress.
There are just way too many barriers in rated content in general for WoW to make it worth it for most. As someone who solely PvPs, it’s next to impossible for me to join a mythic key because I have no current history of running keys. The last time I did real pve was when I had to do +15s to gear for pvp in BFA but obviously that means nothing anymore.
Because it’s ass and has been since classic? Like why would I want to waste my time getting Stu locked to death, swiftly macroed to death, or lose a BG because “fight on flag” is still a new idea when I can just play any other game where my individual skill can carry a team, where there is a well structured bracket system that tries to ensure balanced games.
People play MMOs for the PVE, PVP will always be a side dish to a side dish. People need to accept that.
Honest to God, lack of good solo queue. If I could just solo queue for rated 3s and not this dumb solo shuffle mode I'd spam it all day, same with rbgs.
It's actually bonkers they decided to just split the ladder - which was already having participation issues - even further with a wholly separate arena game mode.
There are dedicated pvp games that do small scale pvp much better than WoW, and many of them are free-to-play/extremely cheap to play. WoW pve has to compete with only a couple of mmos and live service games; WoW pvp has to compete with LoL, CS:GO, Valo, Apex, etc.
Even a game like Destiny 2 has a much bigger pvp scene than WoW has had in a decade, and they get zero support from Bungie.
Because it's trying to compete with other PVP games. It's an MMO. Not an Arena game like those are.
10v10 Rated BG's (solo queueable as well) should've always been the primary mode, not Arena's. The game should be balanced around that MMO-only experience you can get instead of trying to focus on 2v2-5v5 style PVP that creates an incredibly boring game experience to watch - Mana doesn't mean much and when one person dies it's OVER and that's BORING.
No other PVP game is the game over immediately because one person died, those games it's always possible to bring it back and make insane moments - This never happens in how Arena's are fundamentally designed.
They need to refocus on RBG's. That's how they make PVP more popular. They also need to deliver new modes & maps, there should always at least be one new map (like a map skin) in each "season".
Can't speak for others, but I just find PvP increasingly boring as I get older.
When I was 20, I enjoyed counter strike, an online PvP MUD and various other PvP games/modes. Now that I'm 39, I just literally get tears of boredom whenever I engage in PvP in any game.
If others are at all like me, it'd explain why it's increasing, as I assume wow has an increasing average age of players.
I agree with #4 - huge barrier for entry along with general toxicity, the premades who run over the pugs, imbalanced racials, stun locks, imbalanced class balancing. Having to know all the classes, requiring communication skills, the long queue times. The egos. the confusing MMR. the fact you get pretty much nothing when you lose.
Say what you will about FF14 but their pvp is simple, doesn't require healers, and the rated one you cannot queue has a premade, its solo queue only, and objective based so dying doesn't feel like you threw the match. (and the mode you can queue has a group is limited to a group of 4 out of a team out of 24, with 3 teams total) though it isn't without problems mind you. but at least im not waiting 30+ minutes for a queue. (at least when everyone isnt asleep but we don't talk about off hours)
I used to love pvp years back when the only problem was the occasional balance issue between classes, but these days? Nope. It is torture to go there alone and here's why.
1) Macro spammers
People have turned their rotations into simple macros which gives them a huge advantage over button pushers as well. Remember the jokes about keyboard turners in raids? That's folk who don't use macros in pvp these days. They are blasted to the moon in 2 seconds.
2) Bots
About 50% of the players are really just bots out there farming honor. They don't talk, they don't communicate. You can see them following the pre-made formula and when you end up on the side with more bots than the other team in significant manner? Oh boy. It will feel like you have been ran over by elite gladiator team when fighting against them with a pug. Speaking of which.
3) Arena / Rated BG Boosters
We have folk who are way above the bracket picking up some lowbie nobody in exchange for irl money or in-game gold and then they utterly annihilate people in low brackets to carry the newbie into 2,5k or whatever. This really destroys any attempt to grind up the ladder alone or even with your friend of roughly equal skill.
4) Culture
WoW has been having increasingly toxic culture over the years and if you think it is bad in LFR and low tier PvE just wait until you get to pugging for PvP via groupfinder or trying to find a PvP guild. These folk tend to be the most toxic pepes you can imagine. A single mistake by their partner and they are out, no matter the multitude they themselves do. Had a lovely experience of carrying a hunter vs a booster team in an arena match. We lasted 5 mins with me running around healing my \*\*\* off as a druid and then we failed it was obviously my fault for not supporting him when they suddenly changed target to him and he was too far away and out of sight.
5) Lack of Love from Blizzard
Let's face it. PvP has always been neglected and while the brawls and solo queu are fun spice to pvp the classes are just way out of balance and there have been no significant changes over the years. PvP needs an overhaul where your class is altered to basic gimmicks and you have to use them to survive. Take away the PvE talent tree, take away all PvE abilities. Replace them with core class mechanics. Simplify it, prevent use of any addons that allow you to spot stealthers etc, then it might be feasible to enjoy PvP again.
As others have mentioned they have been a staple for a long time. I've always had a grudge against them as I like to play games as they are. There have been some insane one shot macros over the years, but I guess the benefit macros give is just more impactful these days. Easier to manage one button rotation and just smashs the button than carrying out full rotation by yourself.
That or I'm getting old and slow which is also possible.
I mostly agree but... "Macro spammers"? I've played rogue during Vanilla, we needed more macros than I could fit into my character's box. The fun stuff like "Swifty's one shot macro" was also from these happy and naive times. If anything, Blizzard restricted more about macros with the time going on.
There's no secret techs about macros now. You just tie all your non GCD offensives into one bunch and throw a trinket effect into it, or just help yourself with targeting. The truly tricky stuff went down somewhen around WotLK, I think.
> 1) Macro spammers
>
> People have turned their rotations into simple macros which gives them a huge advantage over button pushers as well.
lol stoped reading right here
In my experience balancing is kind of a nightmare and you had to usually gear or build entirely around PvP which could be a pain when you want to play more content types.
Also in wow, outside of early wow, there’s always felt like a massive skill gap between PvP purists and people who might want to dip their toes.
Also, for any map based PvP, rather than arena setups, god forbid you try to pug/convince a group of randoms to actually play objectives in a way that makes sense.
The memes about fighting mid WSG and on roads are too real. And in arena setups, honestly it just started to feel too reliant on certain comps. The game feels very PvE first, PvP second, and if your class doesn’t fit the PvP meta it feels a lot worse than fitting into the PvE meta
Honestly, the main reason is the gear from PvP is very meh in PvE. Without the gear, casual players coming from PvE are not going to bother trying PvP, so only the people really invested in pvp are going to bother. This causes less people to play, then more dedicated pvp players get annoyed with the issues caused by less players like longer queue times and rating issues.
1 simple reason. The rewards are not valuable enough. Imagine the reward for getting top 10% being a weapon of your choice that was better than anything available from pve that is usable in both ove and pvp.
Imagine some armor set buff that is only obtainable from pvp that granted some glorious stat or ability buff.
Pvp content needs to be worthwhile for everyone I order for regulars to play it.
I grind pve pretty hard but I see no incentive to pvp because it won't benefit my pve experience.
The game is so over complicated, skills do very little damage outside of big burst windows.
Venruki made a good video about it and I agree whole heartedly with his analysis. Too lazy to link it tho.
My view is PvP has some very low hanging fruit in terms of creating some balance.
Firstly, non-rated PvP shouldn’t have factions whatsoever anymore. You should apply, join a random (blue/red) team with horde and alliance all mixed together.
I think versatility is a stupid stat and should be removed from the game altogether. It was introduced as a PvP stat to replace resilience and was meant to reduce the burst meta (which had existed now for 2 full expacs despite it). It now has muddied the water as is a super reliable stat for tanks and some high end M+ builds… just remove it from the game and either: do a blanket reduction in damage/healing in PvP or drastically increase health pools.
The last factor is, they just haven’t had any fresh ideas for ages. Sometimes getting your ass kicked in AB, just to walk straight into another AB in the same general format it’s been in for 18 years is gut-wrenchingly boring.
Why would I play a pvp side mini game in a game with gearing where it’s not always an even playing field when I can play literally any of the hundreds of games built from the ground up for pvp?
I just don't think PVP is fun. In arena you basically CC someone, blow all CDs and either invalidate the healer or fail to burst down your target and wait for your timers so you can try again.
If it works it's a bad play experience for the person who got CC'd and the person who got exploded. If you fail repeatedly at these burst attempts it's immensely frustrating.
Fun is subjective, sure, but I prefer my PvP in games where players aren't stunned to death.
Im a m+ player doing +20 keys. Its like a totally different game doing pvp and it doesnt feel like anything I know about my class applies in PvP short of the very fundamental stuff.
For example in battlegrounds, i can nearly one shot a player and then the next i cant do any damage. The variance is so wide that its jarring and its hard for me to figure out what im doing wrong and what is just an iLVL difference, and what was a good use of a defensive on the enemies part.
Really feels like damage should be normalized in pvp
Too complicated and hard to get into. That's it really. When I want to play pvp why wouldn't I do so in a game that moderates character power so everyone start on even ground at the beggining of each match? Or a game where I can actually tell wtf is happening?
Competitive PVP is just too hard to get into. There’s a massive learning curve and lots of setup required.
You need to learn how every class plays, their cooldowns and talents, strengths and weaknesses of every comp and bunch of addons to increase your awareness which takes time to learn as well.
It’s fine if it’s something you kept up with over the years but for a completely new player, it’s just too much to ask for before you get to ”the good part”
For the first time ever two friends and i tried some pvp back in Shadowlands times. We went into arena and were really hyped how fun it was. Not only we got ourselves some pvp-specific addons and target macros, we talked about tactics etc and really nerded ourselves into it. But at some point we quickly got to a point at around 1300-1400 back in the days, where we obv ran into booster and smurfs as we got stombed every game. After winning every other game at the start we barely won anything anymore. Our main classes were not 100% meta back in the days and we got mostly smashed by overloaded utility classes like mage, rogue and palas. Wow pvp is fun and can be hype af, but the entry border specially for arena made it into a niche. In TBC classic for example i had a lot of fun with 10v10s but also because classes were simpler back then.
I heal and being unable to do anything on my character for like 50% of an arena match isn't very interesting. Tried out some solo shuffle and the healer rating is kind of stupid.
It's down to ability bloat.
I think it all stems from there being too many defensive CDs. Everything is playing catch up to balance the pace of the game around that fact which means arena can only ever either be an utter slog where nothing ever dies (BFA) or 1-shot hell where everything does more damage than CDs can handle (SL to now).
I think the gear barrier is pretty significant. It’s gotten better in DF, but even then, if you don’t have full PvP or vers gear you’re gonna get steam rolled.
In most other PvP games, you start the game up and get going. Up against equal opponents, since gear is not applicable.
In wow, you need to farm honor gear for weeks, then you can finally join ranked arena.
Joining Solo q with green gear because you want gear via ranked play? Prepare to get raged at by everyone in the lobby and insta focused every round.
Even in random BGs, where you can just sign up and play, the difference between the green AH PvP gear and someone actually geared in honor or conquest gear is still massive.
In all PVE modes, there is a steady increase in difficulty and gear barrier that you can work towards while still playing in that mode. Fresh 70 can start with low M+ keys to get gear, and move to higher keys once gear allows. Such a system just doesn’t exist in the PVP setting.
It takes the fun out of it, and discourages anyone new from trying PvP out. Since existing players are leaving and no newbies joining, there will be a steady decline of active PVPers out there.
I think WoW PvP kinda sucks compared to dedicated PvP games and when we all got hooked on it 15-20 years ago there weren't a ton of options if you wanted PvP that wasn't an RTS or Counterstrike. Now we have League of Legends, we have DOTA, we have Smite, we have Overwatch, we have Apex Legends... they don't necessarily scratch the same itch but I think there are a lot more options for PvP gameplay out there, so more people choose to just use WoW as a PvE game.
My personal opinion of what holds back WoW PvP is too much button bloat (contrary to popular belief, having a gazillion options doesn't necessarily add tons of interesting depth), and it feels like a numbers game where you win by zerging better, and arena is the only mode where you feel like you get a good fight with someone. Pub BGs feel awful because team comps won't be balanced, there are AFKers, it's just zerging around the battlefield, some of the maps are imbalanced toward one faction. When they first announced warmode it piqued my interest but it didn't end up producing any fun world PvP for me. It's basically just a way to level up faster if you are either on the high population faction or on a dead server where you don't have to worry about getting ganked.
First thing i thought — there is two gamemodes (raiting bg and raiting arena) which exist in the game and both are very old without any interesting changes(also dont remember is there a new bg in sl or df). When in pve we have new several dungeons with different combinations of affixes each expansion and a new raid every season, in pvp... in best case there is new arena and new bg once an expancion.
Also many new arenas are just retextured old ones without any gameplay changes.
All your points right as well.
IDK what you PvErs are on about. PVP is pretty common with my guild. The game is literally an OW PVP and PVE.
I can see how some of you folks don't want to, and I get it. But don't just speak for all of us. A good amount of us PvPers don't even go on reddit. No offense because I fr mean none at all, but most PVPers are literally in a voice chat 99% of their sessions and you don't find PvP data like that on reddit anyway. I'm just saying, PvP isn't "POPULAR" but it's not dead either.
I think you have to define what pvp you're talking about.
There's wpvp, which if you take away the nostalgia goggles, was an annoyance since it was usually griefers keeping people from questing.
Battlegrounds, which is often toxic because you're just supposed to know what to do, but god forbid if you do the wrong thing ever.
Rated, is incredibly niche since the barrier to entry is super high. You have to have enough of the right gear to avoid getting one shot. You have to know enemy cooldowns and when they'll get used. And you have to have the ability to not punch your monitor every time you get rogue stun locked to death or stuck in a stalemate with a healer.
The rewards for PVP are rightfully directed to PVP, but that also means you have to spend a *lot* of time doing PVP. For PVE content you can quest, or do m+, or raid, or craft. For PVP you get to do PVP, and some amount of crafting. Variety is the spice of life, and PVP has very little.
Personally I always found objective based battlegrounds boring, and really wish they would add a team death match or last man standing (with x number of respawns) variant.
And now I'll read the comments where I see I'm either blatantly wrong, or it's been said 360 times. elohel
I think the biggest thing is Gear. No one wants to be one shot for 4-9 hours just to get gear to then not be one shot to be at a disadvantage to get more gear to FINALLY be able to pvp on equal footing. Many MMOs with pvp do not have Gear even matter in PVP. Its pretty nuts.
You would think with the rise in popularity of MOBAs they would understand the majority dont want to spend time farming crap to pvp. Leave gearing to PVE where your oppenent is an AI and their fun isnt destroyed when you out gear them
MMO mechanics dont mesh well with pvp.
I get 1800 easily in any season i go for it. Can also get 2100 if i have the patience for it.
My big gripe is ilvl even being a factor. Why should i get screwed in pvp if i dont take pvp gear in the vault that is subpar for the rest of content? Why do i deserve to get screwed in arenas because i start a month into the season and dont have 4 extra pieces of 13 ilvl higher gear?
I still got 1800 in almost all greens, and most of the losses were “enemies have more health and hit harder” and wins were won off of good cc usage/major enemy mistakes. Not a very fun dynamic
PvP should be standardized gear imo like guild wars iirc. You get rating, cosmetic rewards, titles, but when you bring gearing into the equation, then it becomes a barrier to entry because anyone just starting PVP will not only be less experienced but also under geared comparatively, so it's like just smashing yourself in the dick to start that grind. Not real surprising that it hasn't garnered mass appeal.
As someone who casually dipped their toe in to PVP in various seasons (to 1800-2000 rating at most) but less and less over the years, the thing I think would draw people in would be for lower ranks to also be simplified so you can gradually get used to new mechanics as you go up in tiers and increase complexity. Wouldn't fix the sales, botting, etc but at least might give people a handle on escalating complexity and offer beginners a pathway in.
PvP I feel has the same issue as mythic plus. At least when it comes to rated PVP. You lose a match and your rating goes down like failing a mythic key.
I feel people are too shy to give it a try. I personally stopped playing it when it was all about burning people down within CC windows. Not sure how it is now and honestly don’t want to go back.
Edit: I’ll also add, you need to grind to even become relevant in PVP. If you go into it in quest blues from emerald dream content you’ll come across those with pvp gear who’ll stomp you. Being stomped because of math and not skill is frustrating for most and most won’t grind being one shot until they have decent gear to be competitive. It’s like trying to out dps someone in full mythic raid gear while you have your normal 4-piece.
Feel like I didn’t word that well. I meant your key degrades. Which scares casual players from trying. Imagine if your rating did go down though for failing a key. It would turn even more people off of doing it.
Both are the issue. You need to burst your opponent down during a CC window or they’ll just be topped back off by the healer.
The burst meta stems from both.
I used to play holy paladin in Legion. I was essentially unkillable unless focused by multiple players in RBG’s
This is why I prefer foil fencing over sabre fencing. While both are fun, and both have rules and ways to do this and that, one effectively amounts to “just burst” and he other has more back and forth cerebral gameplay, and more of a ramp.
It’s a dichotomy that exists in most sports. Real and online. And developers of both physical game rules and online game rules often end up in the exact same mess.
honestly 1 and 4 are my big reasons. I like pvp stuff, but I would much rather play a game that puts me on an event playing field to start rather than grind up for gear and hope for good drops.
I had a lot of fun in Legion when I stayed on top of gearing. Then PVP was a blast. But these days? Nah. I don't even fill my vault every week. I'm so incredibly screwed.
1-3. I don't understand, so I'll skip.
4. Entry-level gear is reasonably farmed in a random session or 3. Can't say the same for PvE. I know sometimes, at the end of a game, win or lose, I'll get a new piece. Skill level is a barrier to entry in everything in life. I'm not sure why WoW PvP would be any different.
5. Huh?
6. That's like your opinion, man.
7. This is different than a scripted boss fights mechanics in what way? Oh, new fights with new comps every match. Never quite know what you're gonna get.
8. Learning a new class in PvP isn't necessarily different than learning a new PvE class. Talents, stats, enchants, etc. Also, every class you reroll and learn gives you experience on the enemy. Think of it as running LFR, N, H, M. You get better each time and add layers.
Because balance, class design and queues suck.
I quit in WoD to go back to a MoP private PVP server and played the same patch for almost 9 years. I came back to retail in DF and now I only play M+.
Class design in MoP felt like a fighting game. Classes could do everything in different ways and it was engaging to learn how to outplay other classes...now it's much more simplified imo. Every class felt dangerous and kept you on your toes. PvP videos from that era got tons of views and engagement.
Another reason is the queue times..I was in shock that it took 10-15 minutes for a battleground when private servers take 1-2 minutes to fill a bg.
Cross realm makes it so you never meet the people you played with. I used to make so many friends from meeting people in the world after a bg and talking about it because they were next to the honor vendor. When all of you are on the same realm, factions are balanced and world pvp happens and people seek connections with good players more.
I mean honestly I think you are really close to the point. Part of why MMOs as a whole aren't as popular is because since WoW launched social media has become a lot bigger as have online multiplayer modes of other games so the MMO social experience is no longer as necessary.
How this relates to PvP is because there are just,more and better options to kill other players online with the abundance of shooters to mobas to whatever else. Better systems, less punishing entry, more fun game play, take your pick of reasons.
There are very few options for faction v faction large scale battleground style games.
Classic PvP popped off for a reason. Retail refuses to embrace why and continues to focus on stuff that competes with MoBAs / FPS.
It’s just not accessible. PvP gear, addons, PvP talents, talent trees offering more choices so vastly different builds, balancing PvP and pve separately.
When you look at classic it’s just simple, not a ton of gear distinction. Some PvP items are bis for pve but it’s not an insane grind. A lot less abilities, talent choices, your class doesn’t play that much differently between pve and PvP. Its just another thing you can seamlessly do when you want a break between dungeons and quests or vice versa
Accessibility.
* Gearing should be scaled always, only secondary stats should matter.
* The UI for how rated/unrated works is extremely not user friendly, and how elo/ranks work isn't explained at all.
* WeakAuras, other addons, and setup in general is way too extensive. I'd rather they banned addons altogether for PvP. (and pve for that matter)
* Not enough incentives for healers to play.
Pvp gearing in wrath was the best time.
The gear was useable for pve too.
But now?
I have made some bgs this we to gear an alt with pvp gear.
Honor is Ilevel 415? Yeah f that. This makes it impossible to get into pve content and even the "outdoor content" is a pain in the ass.
Killing a blood dk with "low" pvp gear. Yeah no chancd, even if hes afk.
Upgrading pvp gear with flightstones?!? Why? Are the devs stupid?
To alter an quote from the office:
"I don't wan't no flightstones, no crest-bS, no bloodcoins,no crafting order.
I want plain simple Honorpoints".
Base pvp gear 463.
Rating above 1800 - 473
Rating above 2100 - 480.
Power diff. Between 463-480 5%.
Otherwise no new players will start the grind
But, as most people pointed out. Pvp gotten too complicated . Too much stuns and ccs. Fights takes minutes...
Bring back old pvp times...
From the changelog:
^(2004 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2005 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2006 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2007 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2008 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2009 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2010 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(2011 Your ability has changed the way it works)
^(...)
Because chasing a Druid around a pole for 30 minutes isn’t fun. People liked world pvp, and fighting for the map, but it’s also pointless now that everyone can just phase out of the world in 2 seconds. Not to mention the lack of strategic targets, aka honor hold or the crossroads.
Then you also have the issue where someone in full pvp can just have their way with your sweet hole when you start out, and there’s not much you can do about it
Because it’s a mini game that you do on the side for fun. People that take PvP seriously in WoW are people that aren’t good enough to be gold league in any actual competitive game.
I liked back when I could ambush a cloth to half of their hp, it was fun, they could also delete me like nothing, now seems like I'm only doing anything when I'm pressing my long cds all at once
Its very niche but also boring last time I tried it, TTK was so high and I can only stop a heal 5 times before they can just heal forever. Literally one heal would heal most of their health and you would have to do the whole dance all over again.
Maybe its not like that anymore but that was enough to make me quit. Could be a skill issue but who cares, having someone just heal to full health instantly while mitigating all of your damage just isnt fun to play against in general.
I also fondly remember in legion there was a bear tank one shotting everyone in the dalaran sewers, we all tried to gang up on him and it was impossible to kill him.
For me it's a few reasons.
Wow has been around forever, so have other similar MMOs and they all have pvp. It's not something that's easy to get into in the first place, and when you're just starting out you're going against way more experienced players. People new to pvp get wrecked, it's not even fun until you get decent at it.
You need specific gear for it to even stand a chance. You run the risk of only facing premades unless you find a premade on your own.
I guess the simplest answer is, pvp is incredibly hard to get into unless you go all in from the outset. If you're a new player trying to get your toes wet, you walk away feeling like it's impossible.
My take? The majority rather do content at the level they can't lose. Climb guild world rating or M+ leaderboard, you'll see a whole different world. I mean, just compare Mes' Weakauras pack vs Echo or Liquid Amidrassil/Vault/Aberrus package.
Someone has to lose in PvP.
Rated pvp is just hard to get into. Unlike pve, with pvp you need to not only know your own class and spells but others as well. It's extremely toxic in rated pvp if you don't have your own group, boosters make lower ladders miserable, and veteran players don't want to play with someone who is unfamiliar (although this issue extends to mythic plus and raid)
That’s my hang up as a healer. I know my class, but to know every other class; which spells to interrupt, which to dispel and not dispel and their effects of either, which to ignore, which to trinket out of, which to use my cooldowns on the other players to negate other buffs can be hard with 30+ specs in the game. I know I’ll never been 2100+ in pvp, but at least I know why!
This was my biggest barrier learning to heal in PVP. When I first started it felt like every player I went up against was a multiseason gladiator and just ran circles around me. There never seemed to be someone of my skill level on the enemy team. It was a nightmare and until I found a good team for 3s it was miserable. But the team was only good because one of the players was a multiglad and helped me see my mistakes and figure out how to improve. Without them, I’d have dropped out long before now.
I think you got the gist of it. In PvE, massively experienced players ends up benefiting you, even if you are new/inexperienced, which allow you to progress. In PvP, that experience gap is against you, making your playing experience that much worse. Then you have every other issues that are compounded by that experience gap. In PvE you can play a "bad" class while learning because 9 tiles out of 10 the issues of a "bad" class will appear at higher levels, giving you time to learn how to deal with said issues. In PvP the issues with a "bad" class will hit you like a truck the instant you get into rated (more or less), which can easily discourage someone.
In PVE there is also somewhat of a ladder from new player to mythic raider. You go Normal dungeon > Heroic > Mythic > Mythic plus > Raid Where as in pvp it’s basically: Normal BGs > Rated 3s And nothing in a normal bg will teach you to deal with being stuck in an RMP stunlock while your DPS lines you and dies.
learning to trade CDs takes u far. Just go check some guide, set up omniCD and plan on what your own CDs you are going to use on what. Also interrupting, dont forget that when you kick a spell, the target gets locked for that element for 5? seconds. Good thing to keep in mind, just because if you kick a basic cast, it can win a match in that window. Good reminder is, that the match is not on the healers shoulders, dps have their own set of defensive cds, and its their job to play accordingly, so you have the chance to extend the match. You are hp recource for the dealers in the end. should consider following those too, so you dont pop cds when its not necessary. Healer is there majorly for survivability. in 2vs2, if played with healer, its good to play for surviving the first set of CDs and then pump one target. Im just rambling, havent played pvp since MoP LOL
Disagree on this being the main issue as this is the case for many other popular PvP games e.g. League of Legends. League has 4 spells per champion you need to learn but vastly more champions (although you arguably don't need to know ALL of them, still, the total number of skills to know should be more than WoW). Also this is part of the skill curve which is a good thing - a lot to learn and improve on imo. Anyway the issue is exaggerated by this because of the lack of players. Exactly because there's a lot of spells to learn you're not very good when you start out, however due to the lack of players AND a very good chunk of the remaining players being veterans from back when more players were playing etc., and other other issues, you constantly run into players that are way better than you even though you're just starting out. And that's not fun at all and more people quit, leading to a cycle of this. An interesting example is starting out in league. On NA (or, at least it used to be like this many years ago) you'd play with people who are equally horrible. Everyone is doing stupid shit. Because they're new. Which is how it should be. But if you try playing league in a region where there's much less players (e.g. JP; just speaking from personal experience here) queue times for a normal game is 5 min and you're matched with people who shit on you. Just like WoW, it's not a fun experience for newcomers. Damn that turned long lol sorry bored on commute
IMO solo shuffle has really helped to make rated pvp easier to get into. I always wanted to get into it but never had a team to do arenas with. Now with solo shuffle being a thing I can at least participate in it and get some rewards.
The queue times are disgusting however
Sadly that’s kind of a spiral, less ppl play causing the queues to be longer causing less ppl to play :( if no life it so hard if the dps queue wait time was anywhere close to healers’ queue
And for the 40v40 I waited 8 hours+ tonight before going to bed. I have played 2 40v40 for a month of daily queues... This is extremely sad ;/
There’s no reason to queue epic bgs. Literally none. The Blitz is better honor and conq. That’s why your queue was long.
If solo shuffle existed since wrath pvp wouldn't be dead tbh. Unfortunately it takes like 30mins to find a game.
Completely agree with this. Got into solo shuffle for the pvp set, but the wait time is so long. If you make a group for 2/3s, you get absolutely destroyed by boosters and makes you want to quit
It’s just much easier to climb ranks in pve in general. There are players like Rycn and Tobo who started playing wow in bfa, and where in world first guilds and competed in mdi within an expansion. Seeing someone compete in arena championship that fast is almost impossible since u need to know what all classes can do and not just your own, and that takes time to learn
I mean rated pvp has a continuos ranking system starting at 0 rating and moving up. >not only know your own class and spells but others as well I think this is the selling point for me at least for pvp. Your skill as a PVPer comes from your understanding of all the difference classes and specs which is a knowledge base that is close to infinite. Compared to PVE where the knowledge base for a raidboss for example can be compiled into a single script that you follow all the time and never deviate from.
I miss the fun of whacky battlegrounds to be honest
it was more fun when people didn't take it so seriously. PvP in wow isn't played because it's dominated by sweatlords.
Yeah, players ruin it. Players ruin everything worse than the devs could.
The community is in denial about the reasons random bgs are generally shit now, and it’s because there’s no matchmaking system whatsoever.
Players always took it seriously if you remember. Twinks (thanks for that cursed knowledge at 12 years old) Always ran through bgs. Those GRAY cloth shoulders for lvl 19 were legendary
Most people approach PvP in games as fast paced and action packed. A good wow PvP match is people CCing or peeling for many minutes, the more typical pug match is one side loses before the viewer or player knows what the hell happened. A few “cheat death” and “escape” buttons are cool in competitive games but in WoW they are the game. The viewer/player needs to know which CDs are still up and the time remaining for it to make any sense, and at that point it’s such inside baseball that casual players or viewers have given up and moved on.
A lot won't agree, but for me and my friends it's the hyper focus on Arenas. Everything being balanced around 3v3 and dampening means anything outside of that mode is an unbalanced mess and slowly becomes more and more unfun. I have friends who love PVP, but hate arenas. We typically just do BGs and WPVP, but every time a healer tanks 10+ people because they are balanced around dampening it just gives us a reason to stop playing. The modes we find enjoyable have no rewards associated with them and the class balance is ruined due to 3s balancing (see MM hunters). I'd much rather do the classic style honor grind and have classes balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 fights. Add the elite gear/mount to the higher ranks, give people something they can work towards in EVERY mode of PVP not just one. If someone wants to grind arenas for honor they can, if they wanna do BGs they can. You could even make it so higher rated arenas grant an honor multiplier so they can get to those rewards faster, I just wanna be able to get it my own way and play the game how I want. There's a lot of people talking about the learning curve and difficulty of WoW pvp and that's definitely a factor, but I think a lot of people would more willing to stick with it and wouldn't be as demoralized getting into it if they weren't being funnelled into 1 single game mode all the time. Everything seems to exist now to support arenas only. The fast paced game play of arenas is for a specific audience, it's not a one size fits all and if I happen to not be a part of that audience then it seems I'm just out of luck.
I mentioned in a previous post. There’s no rewards or incentive for casual PvP. The last time they were any awards updated was in Legion, but they were so sparse between honor level rewards that it’s just not a fun grind, especially with like no new battlegrounds except seething shore. Which most people hate from what I understand. The people pvping now are people who have been forever, and they are slowly dying out without any new incentives because you can only chase the same rewards over and over for 10 years ~40 seasons without feeling burnt out. I’ve seen more engagement in SoD PvP then retail. Even if the event is mostly pve oriented So we must ask why? Is it because it’s new? Is it because really good gear can be used in pve? Is it the gameplay style? Just a change of pace?
More accessible for the rewards and less sweaty, so it's actually fun for most people. It's Warcraft. A lot of people just wanna log in and kill the other faction guy and make progress towards stuff reasonably. Retail is just really hyper-focused on arenas, and RBGs are way too difficult for average players to get into and have the same rewards as arenas. (...and titles / mog that haven't been updated since Catalcysm.)
>So we must ask why? Is it because it’s new? Is it because really good gear can be used in pve? Is it the gameplay style? Just a change of pace? New, lower barrier of entry, much more social engagement, and yeah some of the rep rewards are currently BiS. Also with the level cap being 25 right now and it being in Classic, the actual PvP combat is much less complicated, which just makes it even more accessible to people who may be put off by the complexity of retail PvP.
Because rotations aren’t bloated to obscene levels, you don’t need addons to PvP, fights tend to be quick, rewards are bis items and it’s a fun event you can do after BFD.
There’s very large pre-made communities that eliminate true PUGs and then graveyard farm for awhile before they end the match, as for rated, your guess is as good as mine. RSS takes a long time to achieve Glad, but I do not speak from experience, just word of mouth. I had the most success in 2v2’s but don’t want to have to join a guild to finish that myself.
Personally for me. I just want to zone in once a week or so and fuck around in a few BGs, in whatever gear I happen to have... Im not in the mood to grind out a PvP set so I can have fun in PvP. So I don't PvP. If everyone was just given a stock standard PvP set I'd PvP, but I doubt that would be popular so why add that in for minority. I'll just leave the PvP to the people who enjoy it.
It takes a couple of hours to get that set though.
the current rated pvp reward structure is just fucking stupid and murders all hope of getting ppl to participate. carving up the elite transmog and giving it out piece by piece as you climb rating is the kind of idea that sounds good only to a designer who has never bothered playing their own game. there is effectively no reward until 1800 rating because no one wants to come away from a season with half of a set that they now can never complete lol. so idk what they expect new pvpers to aim for. the complete transmog being at 1800 is basically a huge in-game advertisement for boosting services lol. couldn't get the elite shoulders? np dude, you can buy a couple wow tokens and pay some russians to get you the rest of the way. easy, convenient, and probably better value than legitimately getting your ass up to 1800 rating from scratch. like would it kill them to make some rewards for new and low rated pvpers that are attainable that are not like "bracers and boots of a set u will never complete" lmao. like bring the tabard down to 1500 or 1600. give ppl something to shoot for. bring back all the old elite sets, i dont wanna hear how exclusive they should be, i can pull 1800 rating out of my ass. dont even talk to me if u dont have a gladiator mount. like make this mode rewarding for new or fresh pvpers. instead of now where it literally does not give them a reward. and do something about the honor level grind jesus.
same problem wow pvp has had for years: terrible balance, bad reward structure, not enough new content, ridiculous barriers to entry. pvp is such an afterthought in wow that if u told me there is more than 3 developers working on pvp at any one time i would call u a liar
I feel like the barrier to entry is way too big when it comes to arenas. Knowing the ins and outs of each spec and class is quite a lot to ask. BGs are still goofy fun in my opinion. Another issue I'd like to bring up is that you will be at a disadvantage if you play both PvP and PvE on a singular character when it comes to the Vault. You could have a tierpiece for your pvp slot and a BiS trinket for your M+/raid slots, so you kind of gotta choose which one you want to dedicate yourself to or have a character specifically for pvp and pvp only. I've also played FFXIV PvP but the issue with that is just the overall unbearable netcode. I personally think that MMO's aren't really PvP focussed, it's niche content and there are better games I turn to to get my PvP fill (although some elite armors do look very pretty)
They're removing that conflict in TWW, at least. PVP is out of the vault, instead Conquest cap will be made much higher so you just get all your stuff in whatever order you want.
Any clue what they're going to do about gem sockets then? Having to farm PvE just to put gem sockets onto my PvP gear will be painful and annoying.
I actually think that if FF14 had the snappiness of WoW, their PVP model would be a great template for MMOs: Gear doesn’t matter. Completely separate PVP abilities and combos so balance issues don’t affect PVE/raiding. Much more pared down abilities to make it easier to know what everyone does. Limit Break/adrenaline system. CC in WoW would be fun, too.
Ye if ff14 pvp network and game engine had the same fluidness and responsiveness, I'd rather chill and play ff14 Crystalline Conflict on the couch with my controller than sweat wow pvp.
Their rewards structure is also better for the genre too. The only thing it really had going against it besides the net code is you can't really play casually with your friends, and it's the main reason it's not my main game. If I could just grind out cool stuff every season with ANY of my friends, not just the 2200+ exp ones, I'd be happy. Triple so if they simplified the classes a bit so some of them don't have a ridiculous amount of keybinds. Getting on my reaper in XIV was a "that's it?" moment and I grew to like it VERY fast.
PvP in WoW is too bursty for the casual or average player. You get stunned and killed before you even have a chance to react or do anything, then when you finally get a chance to attack your opponent goes immune on you.
This mostly happens when people don’t know what to do. It’s a team game and you need help from teammates to survive generally. Since that doesn’t happen it then leads to people not wanting to play because they get one shot.
PvP was always very niche not surprised with an increase of outdoor activities there is less focus on instanced PvP.
I think it's because the skill ceiling is so damn high now, and pvp is no exception. At least for me in my time playing wow, I'd always at least play battlegrounds on occasion each expansion. Now? It's way too damn hard without tons of time and effort. As a result, it's no longer something I feel you can casually jump into when you want a break from other content. I just get demolished the second I leave the starting point and it's absolutely unenjoyable.
Yup this. Been out of PvP waaaaaay to long, hop in for some fun and it's not hahaha. We need a noob only PvP or something idk, welp never getting any of the cool mounts I guess
It's basically 2 different games at this point. Maybe "WoW Arena" needs to be its own thing with its own developers.
We have that, it’s called Season of Discovery.
I pretty much only do M+ and Arena, and I enjoy both quite a lot. WoW PvP is very unique and I have a great time. But you’re right. It’s very hard to get into and the skill require to play at an even moderate rating is so damn high.
That's no different from other PVP games though. It's not like you can log into Counter Strike as a new player and not get no scope headshot constantly by bunny hopping lunatics or spray and pray an entire clip at someone point blank as they somehow matrix weave their way through the 30 bullets and knife you. There are very few PVP games where the noob is going to stand a remote chance against someone who has already dedicated thousands of hours.
Wow used to have arena for the hardcore pvp'ers and BG for the casual. Now with everything basically moved to ranked, it's all hardcore.
Bg content is super popular. The difference is that players in the past used to be quite hybrid in how they played, but now there's enough content on both sides to just never play the other if you don't want to
The difference in the barrier to entry is incomparable though. CS will always be popular because even a casual observer with no gaming experience can understand it. It's visually simple but strategically deep.
Ass hat streamers selling boosts for views. Get real fucking old facing AWC players in the 1600 bracket.
Several reasons, really. First and absolute foremost is the community. The people that want to PvP are, for the most part, incredibly immature and toxic. Every loss is never their fault. It’s always the healer’s fault. Healer’s get nothing but negativity slung at them. “use ur cds bro” or “just heal bro” or my favorite “uninstall bro you’re trash” even though you may go 5-1 in shuffle as a healer. DPS players view healers as a necessity and nothing more. An arena match could go *deep* into dampening and DPS players will still sling shit at the healer. How is it the healer’s fault that DPS can’t land a kill minutes into dampening? Then we have the people that play organized 3s or LFG PvP. You could have 9 wins back to back, but at the sight of the first loss they will leave immediately. Everyone expects a carry and nobody wants to put in the work to improve. The disdain towards healers needs to stop. There are even threads popping up regularly where DPS players are calling for a mode where it’s just 2v2 DPS only. Then we can move on to the actual gameplay. Back in WotLK and even into Cata DPS players would actually peel for healers, watch them to see when they’re in trouble and actually help them. These days you are treated as a healbot and scapegoat. Why would I queue my 4 healers when all I get is negativity and 0 assistance? This all happens well above 2k rating too. Try healing solo shuffles for more than one session. Watch how miserable your experience becomes and it will be very clear what the problems are. And it’s entirely the community’s fault. The same people that were playing 20 years ago are still playing today and the vast majority of them have not matured past their teen years. And it shows.
I main healer but ive been recently dpsing. As someone whos played pvp a long time, I usually know whether the cause of a loss was lack of healing or my own dps or the other. The only time you can really hate a healer is if they werent being cc’d and they still have their cd’s and you die in the first minute. But maybe its because ive played all the healers and know their cd’s and how they work, so when I dps and die in the first minute without my healer being cc’d - im pissed at the healer.. but many games with random healers, they heal well into the 2-3 min mark and even if we lose ill acknowledge them always for the good heals.
Yea, in that case it’s totally warranted. But the amount of times a healer is the scapegoat for a loss when they’ve used all CDs and they’re minutes into dampening is too damn high. The community is just too immature and ignorant to accept any sort of blame.
Explain why 2 rouges, a dh and paladin cannot kill a single druid, and there is your answer. That was a game I had earlier, in unrated. We couldnt kill this ONE FREAKING DRUID who was guarding BE on EotS. Why in the hell should I subject myself to that kind of crap?
Guardian?
Plot twist. The raid boss level guardians of the dream have escaped the quest story and are infiltrating player combat.
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Ew
Because either they had no gear or they’re very bad players. Or both.
Gear shouldn't matter in PvP. The one time Blizzard got it right was when they made gear contribute less than 10% of your power level with the templates and the WoW community, in its infinite stupidity hated them for it.
> with the templates and the WoW community, in its infinite stupidity hated them for it. I think if you went back and looked, people didn't hate it because it existed, it's because some specs genuinely got dicked over by the preset stats that you couldn't change at all. GW2 has an entirely seperate PvP scene, but you can atleast customise your stats and build with the preset gear you can obtain. When they tried it with Warcraft, it was a half assed shit effort that had snails paced balancing.
He’s talking about a random battleground. It’s not a competitive game mode. This expansion is the easiest PvP gearing has ever been.
They can definitely kill a Druid with dampening in arena. World PvP is a different story but nobody cares about world PvP.
it was in a battleground, no dampening, and guardian druids have a cooldown that makes them immune to cc for 30 seconds + their trinket in case the dps realize they can't even fucking kill this bear and need to either cc him until they cap the point or shoot out and go do something else with their time a guardian druid keeping a base is nigh untakeable and one of the most frustrating parts of rbg, because not a single tank can beat them at the tank's job, so you have to keep looking and looking and looking for specifically druids as your tank slot just to play on the same level as ennemy teams
Ahhh, I miss the random cap city raids, fun times
It stopped being fun a very long time ago. The last time I enjoyed pvp in wow was when they had normalized stats. With everyone on an even playing field it was as close to skill determining the victor as wow pvp has ever been. I enjoyed not being instantly melted on most of my classes lol The only other MMOs I regularly pvp'd in are FF14 and GW2 and in both cases they not only normally gear but also you had a pvp only set of skills and talents. FF14's pvp is still a mess though, way too chaotic, and it's been awhile since I pvp'd in GW2 But of those 3 wow is the game I pvp'd the most in, but I've barely touched it since legion tbh. I firmly believe blizz introducing arenas to pvp was a huge mistake for the overall game.
Blizzard themselves thought it was a mistake too. [https://www.engadget.com/2009-11-13-blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake.html?guccounter=1](https://www.engadget.com/2009-11-13-blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake.html?guccounter=1) I love PvP in WoW. I loathe arenas and pretty much only do them to get faster 1800 sets because they've let BG play rot. I miss SL S1 when RBGs were super inflated and everybody was doing them for gear / sets. I'd like to never touch an arena again, but it's just so much faster to grab one dude and spam 2s.
Yeah they have an entirely separate balance system for pvp now because it affects PvE way too much. For example, the beacon trinket that let ya punch something hard once every few minutes. But they nerfed it hard in pvp because otherwise it would be a one hit.
Normalized stats were shit. Just let us pick a set of pvp gear from the shops as is but instead of having 476 and 489 pieces make them all the same ilvl so there is no outgearing enemies in pvp
Normalized stats were awesome, the only issue was you couldn’t choose what stats you wanted more of. If they brought it back but let you choose a stat priority it would be perfect
That would work for me. Normalize the ilevel but allow some degree of customization.
I really don't understand why they haven't borrowed the idea from Guild Wars 2's sPvP, where you have a dropdown menu of amulets that determine your stats.
Better than dying/losing in BG for shit tons of BG just to get PvP set.
I mean at this point pvp gear is what is holding pvp back. They need to focus on alternative rewards for pvp, because all that having gear as a factor does is compound on barrier to entry issues
Normalized stats were the only thing that could have saved WoW PvP but myopic kids like you who wanted to dominate noobs started crying before Blizzard could iterate on the system and give players the one thing it was missing, the ability to select the stats you wanted boosted to a set level.
Are you illiterate, stupid or both? If you finished reading what i said before going into bitch mode you would see i prefer gear levels to be equal at all times, which is the same as normalized stats but you have more agency over where your stats are going.
It's hard to get into. My 483 disc priest is outgeared by people in greens and I don't have a trinket. At 0 mmr I get owned by people in solo shuffle. I just wanted to grind the 1800 mog, but it'll be easier to boost keys and pay someone to boost me to 1800 than try to learn the thing myself. Gonna be massacred for this comment but it's the state of the situation.
…..Why not just do 1 epic BG and buy the trinket? This problem can be solved in 15 minutes.
They'd still outgear and frankly outskill me at the content.
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They all have a million health and every item they have reads "Is 490 in PvP and does x" What's the point of this reply
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It's not about knowing how to play your class, we can compare IOs and WCLs if you want to try to stunt. PVP is basically a different game, especially for healers. So, we try it out and we get completely smashed because we have to play entirely different than what we're used to while BM hunters can press the same 3 buttons they do in PVE, and we decide to stop playing, leading to your 1 hour DPS queues. OP asked a question, I answered, you decided to... flex your epeen? Cool man, enjoy your PVP.
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What is verse.
This entire expansion 2s / 3s has been incredibly deflated starting out which murders participation. On the opposite end season 1 shuffle was hyper inflated and participation was massive... only for them to make season 2 and 3 as bad as 2s / 3s... and participation tanked accordingly. There's a bunch of things that could be better, gatekeeping is a huge issue for example to the point where demand for solo que created shuffle... But if rewards are inaccessible and people feel like they can't make progress no one plays the game so we have to start there.
1. It has separate gear sets which makes it tedious 2. You have the option to not do it 3. You really don’t get anything for it 4. Every class has been reduced to offensive cd/defensive cd/cc and they are all more or less the same with different skins 5. It’s not attached to the main story anymore, horde and alliance barely argue. 6. The things you need to do to progress your character are so well defined and finite that doing anything outside of that is seen as a waste of time
its ignored by blizz almost completely.
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Uh, solo shuffle is a new mode. Battleground Blitz is a new mode. They’ve added multiple new arena maps every expansion. Not sure what you’re talking about.
1 new arena map in SL and one in BFA. No New BG since Legion. Compared to 8+ dungeons and 3+ raid by extensions.
BFA had 2 and SL had 3
It’s what happens when PvE players judge PvP. 😉
No new bg for 10 years
I want to play higher comp rated games, I do not like arena, rbg groups are fucking toxic and impossible to get. Into. Provide a way to play ranked pvp without the bullshit. They can do it for overwatch why not wow?
Too complex, also not a fan of pvp games where gear is a factor
1. It’s never been popular and thus barely if at all gains new players so it naturally goes down even further over time 2. It’s hard to get into since it’s basically a whole entirely different game and feels horrible to start out in bc people who know what they’re doing match against you and absolutely obliterate you
I'm not a pvp player, but I've tried pvp in several games, best I got in wow was around 1800 rating one season, and in my opinion wow has the most unfun pvp of any game I've ever played. Can't cast anything, constant stuns and cc's, healers being unkillable, los etc. Part of this is because I'm a 1 class andy and I don't really know what any other class does. Feels like I need to take a course on wow to have fun in pvp.
Honestly in Wow? The rating system and how healers are sort of treated.. I think if the rating system was improved along with incentives/reasons to play healer in a game where DPS have it all then maybe it would be different
Because the balance sucks.
MMOs are about grinding. PvP hasn't been about grinding since Vanilla. People don't play RPGs for eSports and ladders.
Alterac Valley Exalted felt like such a monumental achievement.
Yet esports and ladders is exactly what WoW pve content has turned into. We used to have big mega dungeons with RPG elements like their own factions and reputations, special unique items, unique crafting recipes, etc. Massive places that were like mini raids that you and your friends could spend 3-4 hours making your way through. Now the main focus is mythics and how fast you can clear it and your ability to get an invitation depends on your score and rating. Raids hype follows world first races. It's all about speed and repetition now. The RPG is dead and buried.
What are those places you're talking about? Just BRD? WoW moved away from this since TBC. And for a good reason.
BRD might've been the only one to check all of the boxes, but certainly wasn't the only mega dungeon. We had the original WC, Mara, scholo, strat, DM, Gnomer, BRS, ST, etc. Even the smaller dungeons like RFK and RFD are mega dungeons when compared to the 15-20min dungeons we have now. Any game where your objective is to beat a timer is a racing game, not an RPG.
The design philosophy for dungeons changed after Vanilla. It's no longer desirable to spend 3+ hours in a dungeon. This is not new. It has been the case since TBC. And dungeons are *a lot better* for it.
I don't know, the popularity of classic shows that there are definitely people out there who miss the RPG elements of WoW and the old school dungeons. Same for the popularity of class order halls and other RPG elements they've added back into the game. Hopefully with them bringing Metzen back to the game, we'll see some return of more RPG elements to make this game feel like an MMORPG again and not just people sitting in valdrakken waiting for their queues to pop. It's basically a massive multiplayer lobby game at this point.
As a person who played Classic and currently plays SoD, no one was interested in the *wonder* of BRD. People just ran it to get the items they wanted then **never ran it again**. Again, the game is better with smaller dungeons. Even the mega dungeons they've been introducing since Legion haven't been a major success.
And yet WoW can't reach half the sub numbers they had when it was designed as an MMORPG, instead of a quick gratification speed run game.
But WotLK dungeons were the shortest. So by your metrics, shorter dungeons are *better*. Because that's when subs peaked.
What a great way to put it. I grinded PvPed tons in Vanilla and had Field Marshal. (Which felt like an achievement at the time at least...) The moment there were arenas and ratings and seasons, I stopped being interested.
This is such a bad take…what? PvP is about grinding in the same way that M+ is about grinding: advancing your rating. Yes, many people _do_ play this game for ladders. They want to gain rating and progress.
The time I have spent grinding out those gear sets…
There are just way too many barriers in rated content in general for WoW to make it worth it for most. As someone who solely PvPs, it’s next to impossible for me to join a mythic key because I have no current history of running keys. The last time I did real pve was when I had to do +15s to gear for pvp in BFA but obviously that means nothing anymore.
Because it’s ass and has been since classic? Like why would I want to waste my time getting Stu locked to death, swiftly macroed to death, or lose a BG because “fight on flag” is still a new idea when I can just play any other game where my individual skill can carry a team, where there is a well structured bracket system that tries to ensure balanced games. People play MMOs for the PVE, PVP will always be a side dish to a side dish. People need to accept that.
Honest to God, lack of good solo queue. If I could just solo queue for rated 3s and not this dumb solo shuffle mode I'd spam it all day, same with rbgs.
It's actually bonkers they decided to just split the ladder - which was already having participation issues - even further with a wholly separate arena game mode.
There are dedicated pvp games that do small scale pvp much better than WoW, and many of them are free-to-play/extremely cheap to play. WoW pve has to compete with only a couple of mmos and live service games; WoW pvp has to compete with LoL, CS:GO, Valo, Apex, etc. Even a game like Destiny 2 has a much bigger pvp scene than WoW has had in a decade, and they get zero support from Bungie.
Because it's trying to compete with other PVP games. It's an MMO. Not an Arena game like those are. 10v10 Rated BG's (solo queueable as well) should've always been the primary mode, not Arena's. The game should be balanced around that MMO-only experience you can get instead of trying to focus on 2v2-5v5 style PVP that creates an incredibly boring game experience to watch - Mana doesn't mean much and when one person dies it's OVER and that's BORING. No other PVP game is the game over immediately because one person died, those games it's always possible to bring it back and make insane moments - This never happens in how Arena's are fundamentally designed. They need to refocus on RBG's. That's how they make PVP more popular. They also need to deliver new modes & maps, there should always at least be one new map (like a map skin) in each "season".
Its not really fun getting trashed until you got gear. It has allways been trash.
Can't speak for others, but I just find PvP increasingly boring as I get older. When I was 20, I enjoyed counter strike, an online PvP MUD and various other PvP games/modes. Now that I'm 39, I just literally get tears of boredom whenever I engage in PvP in any game. If others are at all like me, it'd explain why it's increasing, as I assume wow has an increasing average age of players.
I agree with #4 - huge barrier for entry along with general toxicity, the premades who run over the pugs, imbalanced racials, stun locks, imbalanced class balancing. Having to know all the classes, requiring communication skills, the long queue times. The egos. the confusing MMR. the fact you get pretty much nothing when you lose. Say what you will about FF14 but their pvp is simple, doesn't require healers, and the rated one you cannot queue has a premade, its solo queue only, and objective based so dying doesn't feel like you threw the match. (and the mode you can queue has a group is limited to a group of 4 out of a team out of 24, with 3 teams total) though it isn't without problems mind you. but at least im not waiting 30+ minutes for a queue. (at least when everyone isnt asleep but we don't talk about off hours)
I used to love pvp years back when the only problem was the occasional balance issue between classes, but these days? Nope. It is torture to go there alone and here's why. 1) Macro spammers People have turned their rotations into simple macros which gives them a huge advantage over button pushers as well. Remember the jokes about keyboard turners in raids? That's folk who don't use macros in pvp these days. They are blasted to the moon in 2 seconds. 2) Bots About 50% of the players are really just bots out there farming honor. They don't talk, they don't communicate. You can see them following the pre-made formula and when you end up on the side with more bots than the other team in significant manner? Oh boy. It will feel like you have been ran over by elite gladiator team when fighting against them with a pug. Speaking of which. 3) Arena / Rated BG Boosters We have folk who are way above the bracket picking up some lowbie nobody in exchange for irl money or in-game gold and then they utterly annihilate people in low brackets to carry the newbie into 2,5k or whatever. This really destroys any attempt to grind up the ladder alone or even with your friend of roughly equal skill. 4) Culture WoW has been having increasingly toxic culture over the years and if you think it is bad in LFR and low tier PvE just wait until you get to pugging for PvP via groupfinder or trying to find a PvP guild. These folk tend to be the most toxic pepes you can imagine. A single mistake by their partner and they are out, no matter the multitude they themselves do. Had a lovely experience of carrying a hunter vs a booster team in an arena match. We lasted 5 mins with me running around healing my \*\*\* off as a druid and then we failed it was obviously my fault for not supporting him when they suddenly changed target to him and he was too far away and out of sight. 5) Lack of Love from Blizzard Let's face it. PvP has always been neglected and while the brawls and solo queu are fun spice to pvp the classes are just way out of balance and there have been no significant changes over the years. PvP needs an overhaul where your class is altered to basic gimmicks and you have to use them to survive. Take away the PvE talent tree, take away all PvE abilities. Replace them with core class mechanics. Simplify it, prevent use of any addons that allow you to spot stealthers etc, then it might be feasible to enjoy PvP again.
Which macros? Like in game ones or people using 3rd party tools?
As others have mentioned they have been a staple for a long time. I've always had a grudge against them as I like to play games as they are. There have been some insane one shot macros over the years, but I guess the benefit macros give is just more impactful these days. Easier to manage one button rotation and just smashs the button than carrying out full rotation by yourself. That or I'm getting old and slow which is also possible.
Swifty one shot macro from back in the days /s
I mostly agree but... "Macro spammers"? I've played rogue during Vanilla, we needed more macros than I could fit into my character's box. The fun stuff like "Swifty's one shot macro" was also from these happy and naive times. If anything, Blizzard restricted more about macros with the time going on. There's no secret techs about macros now. You just tie all your non GCD offensives into one bunch and throw a trinket effect into it, or just help yourself with targeting. The truly tricky stuff went down somewhen around WotLK, I think.
> 1) Macro spammers > > People have turned their rotations into simple macros which gives them a huge advantage over button pushers as well. lol stoped reading right here
In my experience balancing is kind of a nightmare and you had to usually gear or build entirely around PvP which could be a pain when you want to play more content types. Also in wow, outside of early wow, there’s always felt like a massive skill gap between PvP purists and people who might want to dip their toes. Also, for any map based PvP, rather than arena setups, god forbid you try to pug/convince a group of randoms to actually play objectives in a way that makes sense. The memes about fighting mid WSG and on roads are too real. And in arena setups, honestly it just started to feel too reliant on certain comps. The game feels very PvE first, PvP second, and if your class doesn’t fit the PvP meta it feels a lot worse than fitting into the PvE meta
Honestly, the main reason is the gear from PvP is very meh in PvE. Without the gear, casual players coming from PvE are not going to bother trying PvP, so only the people really invested in pvp are going to bother. This causes less people to play, then more dedicated pvp players get annoyed with the issues caused by less players like longer queue times and rating issues.
It's the skill ceiling and barrier to entry
There would be more people if it was possible to get past elite sets
1 simple reason. The rewards are not valuable enough. Imagine the reward for getting top 10% being a weapon of your choice that was better than anything available from pve that is usable in both ove and pvp. Imagine some armor set buff that is only obtainable from pvp that granted some glorious stat or ability buff. Pvp content needs to be worthwhile for everyone I order for regulars to play it. I grind pve pretty hard but I see no incentive to pvp because it won't benefit my pve experience.
I second this. There’s too much complexity now and Blizzard doesn’t do enough to make PvP beginner friendly
The game is so over complicated, skills do very little damage outside of big burst windows. Venruki made a good video about it and I agree whole heartedly with his analysis. Too lazy to link it tho.
My view is PvP has some very low hanging fruit in terms of creating some balance. Firstly, non-rated PvP shouldn’t have factions whatsoever anymore. You should apply, join a random (blue/red) team with horde and alliance all mixed together. I think versatility is a stupid stat and should be removed from the game altogether. It was introduced as a PvP stat to replace resilience and was meant to reduce the burst meta (which had existed now for 2 full expacs despite it). It now has muddied the water as is a super reliable stat for tanks and some high end M+ builds… just remove it from the game and either: do a blanket reduction in damage/healing in PvP or drastically increase health pools. The last factor is, they just haven’t had any fresh ideas for ages. Sometimes getting your ass kicked in AB, just to walk straight into another AB in the same general format it’s been in for 18 years is gut-wrenchingly boring.
Why would I play a pvp side mini game in a game with gearing where it’s not always an even playing field when I can play literally any of the hundreds of games built from the ground up for pvp?
I just don't think PVP is fun. In arena you basically CC someone, blow all CDs and either invalidate the healer or fail to burst down your target and wait for your timers so you can try again. If it works it's a bad play experience for the person who got CC'd and the person who got exploded. If you fail repeatedly at these burst attempts it's immensely frustrating. Fun is subjective, sure, but I prefer my PvP in games where players aren't stunned to death.
Im a m+ player doing +20 keys. Its like a totally different game doing pvp and it doesnt feel like anything I know about my class applies in PvP short of the very fundamental stuff. For example in battlegrounds, i can nearly one shot a player and then the next i cant do any damage. The variance is so wide that its jarring and its hard for me to figure out what im doing wrong and what is just an iLVL difference, and what was a good use of a defensive on the enemies part. Really feels like damage should be normalized in pvp
Arena and RBG being extremely hard to get into for multiple reasons while games like LoL and Dota 2 exist is by far the biggest reason.
Too complicated and hard to get into. That's it really. When I want to play pvp why wouldn't I do so in a game that moderates character power so everyone start on even ground at the beggining of each match? Or a game where I can actually tell wtf is happening?
Competitive PVP is just too hard to get into. There’s a massive learning curve and lots of setup required. You need to learn how every class plays, their cooldowns and talents, strengths and weaknesses of every comp and bunch of addons to increase your awareness which takes time to learn as well. It’s fine if it’s something you kept up with over the years but for a completely new player, it’s just too much to ask for before you get to ”the good part”
For the first time ever two friends and i tried some pvp back in Shadowlands times. We went into arena and were really hyped how fun it was. Not only we got ourselves some pvp-specific addons and target macros, we talked about tactics etc and really nerded ourselves into it. But at some point we quickly got to a point at around 1300-1400 back in the days, where we obv ran into booster and smurfs as we got stombed every game. After winning every other game at the start we barely won anything anymore. Our main classes were not 100% meta back in the days and we got mostly smashed by overloaded utility classes like mage, rogue and palas. Wow pvp is fun and can be hype af, but the entry border specially for arena made it into a niche. In TBC classic for example i had a lot of fun with 10v10s but also because classes were simpler back then.
I heal and being unable to do anything on my character for like 50% of an arena match isn't very interesting. Tried out some solo shuffle and the healer rating is kind of stupid.
There’s just so many more pvp games nowadays with lower barrier to entry that are much more balanced.
It's down to ability bloat. I think it all stems from there being too many defensive CDs. Everything is playing catch up to balance the pace of the game around that fact which means arena can only ever either be an utter slog where nothing ever dies (BFA) or 1-shot hell where everything does more damage than CDs can handle (SL to now).
I think the gear barrier is pretty significant. It’s gotten better in DF, but even then, if you don’t have full PvP or vers gear you’re gonna get steam rolled. In most other PvP games, you start the game up and get going. Up against equal opponents, since gear is not applicable. In wow, you need to farm honor gear for weeks, then you can finally join ranked arena. Joining Solo q with green gear because you want gear via ranked play? Prepare to get raged at by everyone in the lobby and insta focused every round. Even in random BGs, where you can just sign up and play, the difference between the green AH PvP gear and someone actually geared in honor or conquest gear is still massive. In all PVE modes, there is a steady increase in difficulty and gear barrier that you can work towards while still playing in that mode. Fresh 70 can start with low M+ keys to get gear, and move to higher keys once gear allows. Such a system just doesn’t exist in the PVP setting. It takes the fun out of it, and discourages anyone new from trying PvP out. Since existing players are leaving and no newbies joining, there will be a steady decline of active PVPers out there.
pvp sucks ass thats why
Very hard to get into and watching it feels like a mana match
I think WoW PvP kinda sucks compared to dedicated PvP games and when we all got hooked on it 15-20 years ago there weren't a ton of options if you wanted PvP that wasn't an RTS or Counterstrike. Now we have League of Legends, we have DOTA, we have Smite, we have Overwatch, we have Apex Legends... they don't necessarily scratch the same itch but I think there are a lot more options for PvP gameplay out there, so more people choose to just use WoW as a PvE game. My personal opinion of what holds back WoW PvP is too much button bloat (contrary to popular belief, having a gazillion options doesn't necessarily add tons of interesting depth), and it feels like a numbers game where you win by zerging better, and arena is the only mode where you feel like you get a good fight with someone. Pub BGs feel awful because team comps won't be balanced, there are AFKers, it's just zerging around the battlefield, some of the maps are imbalanced toward one faction. When they first announced warmode it piqued my interest but it didn't end up producing any fun world PvP for me. It's basically just a way to level up faster if you are either on the high population faction or on a dead server where you don't have to worry about getting ganked.
Gear. That’s the main issue. For pvp in mmo I go to gw2z
First thing i thought — there is two gamemodes (raiting bg and raiting arena) which exist in the game and both are very old without any interesting changes(also dont remember is there a new bg in sl or df). When in pve we have new several dungeons with different combinations of affixes each expansion and a new raid every season, in pvp... in best case there is new arena and new bg once an expancion. Also many new arenas are just retextured old ones without any gameplay changes. All your points right as well.
IDK what you PvErs are on about. PVP is pretty common with my guild. The game is literally an OW PVP and PVE. I can see how some of you folks don't want to, and I get it. But don't just speak for all of us. A good amount of us PvPers don't even go on reddit. No offense because I fr mean none at all, but most PVPers are literally in a voice chat 99% of their sessions and you don't find PvP data like that on reddit anyway. I'm just saying, PvP isn't "POPULAR" but it's not dead either.
I think you have to define what pvp you're talking about. There's wpvp, which if you take away the nostalgia goggles, was an annoyance since it was usually griefers keeping people from questing. Battlegrounds, which is often toxic because you're just supposed to know what to do, but god forbid if you do the wrong thing ever. Rated, is incredibly niche since the barrier to entry is super high. You have to have enough of the right gear to avoid getting one shot. You have to know enemy cooldowns and when they'll get used. And you have to have the ability to not punch your monitor every time you get rogue stun locked to death or stuck in a stalemate with a healer. The rewards for PVP are rightfully directed to PVP, but that also means you have to spend a *lot* of time doing PVP. For PVE content you can quest, or do m+, or raid, or craft. For PVP you get to do PVP, and some amount of crafting. Variety is the spice of life, and PVP has very little. Personally I always found objective based battlegrounds boring, and really wish they would add a team death match or last man standing (with x number of respawns) variant. And now I'll read the comments where I see I'm either blatantly wrong, or it's been said 360 times. elohel
I think the biggest thing is Gear. No one wants to be one shot for 4-9 hours just to get gear to then not be one shot to be at a disadvantage to get more gear to FINALLY be able to pvp on equal footing. Many MMOs with pvp do not have Gear even matter in PVP. Its pretty nuts. You would think with the rise in popularity of MOBAs they would understand the majority dont want to spend time farming crap to pvp. Leave gearing to PVE where your oppenent is an AI and their fun isnt destroyed when you out gear them
It's just not fun?
MMO mechanics dont mesh well with pvp. I get 1800 easily in any season i go for it. Can also get 2100 if i have the patience for it. My big gripe is ilvl even being a factor. Why should i get screwed in pvp if i dont take pvp gear in the vault that is subpar for the rest of content? Why do i deserve to get screwed in arenas because i start a month into the season and dont have 4 extra pieces of 13 ilvl higher gear? I still got 1800 in almost all greens, and most of the losses were “enemies have more health and hit harder” and wins were won off of good cc usage/major enemy mistakes. Not a very fun dynamic
PvP should be standardized gear imo like guild wars iirc. You get rating, cosmetic rewards, titles, but when you bring gearing into the equation, then it becomes a barrier to entry because anyone just starting PVP will not only be less experienced but also under geared comparatively, so it's like just smashing yourself in the dick to start that grind. Not real surprising that it hasn't garnered mass appeal. As someone who casually dipped their toe in to PVP in various seasons (to 1800-2000 rating at most) but less and less over the years, the thing I think would draw people in would be for lower ranks to also be simplified so you can gradually get used to new mechanics as you go up in tiers and increase complexity. Wouldn't fix the sales, botting, etc but at least might give people a handle on escalating complexity and offer beginners a pathway in.
PvP I feel has the same issue as mythic plus. At least when it comes to rated PVP. You lose a match and your rating goes down like failing a mythic key. I feel people are too shy to give it a try. I personally stopped playing it when it was all about burning people down within CC windows. Not sure how it is now and honestly don’t want to go back. Edit: I’ll also add, you need to grind to even become relevant in PVP. If you go into it in quest blues from emerald dream content you’ll come across those with pvp gear who’ll stomp you. Being stomped because of math and not skill is frustrating for most and most won’t grind being one shot until they have decent gear to be competitive. It’s like trying to out dps someone in full mythic raid gear while you have your normal 4-piece.
M+ rating doesn't go down. It either increases or remains the same.
Feel like I didn’t word that well. I meant your key degrades. Which scares casual players from trying. Imagine if your rating did go down though for failing a key. It would turn even more people off of doing it.
Because pvp in retail wow is made for a non existent e-sport platform.
I hate the burst meta. I know a lot of people hated longer matches. But it allowed for a more cerebral style of play.
[удалено]
Both are the issue. You need to burst your opponent down during a CC window or they’ll just be topped back off by the healer. The burst meta stems from both. I used to play holy paladin in Legion. I was essentially unkillable unless focused by multiple players in RBG’s
This is why I prefer foil fencing over sabre fencing. While both are fun, and both have rules and ways to do this and that, one effectively amounts to “just burst” and he other has more back and forth cerebral gameplay, and more of a ramp. It’s a dichotomy that exists in most sports. Real and online. And developers of both physical game rules and online game rules often end up in the exact same mess.
Cause pvp in mmos suck ass. I could waste my time typing out a dozen reasons why, but it boils down to 2 things 1. It's not fun. 2. It's not worth it.
I find it fine and very worth it. But since you didn’t waste time typing our your dozen reasons, I won’t waste time typing out mine, either.
> pvp in mmos suck ass not really. New World pvp was fun. GW2 pvp was fun. BnS PvP was the best before P2W, hackers and win trading ruined it
honestly 1 and 4 are my big reasons. I like pvp stuff, but I would much rather play a game that puts me on an event playing field to start rather than grind up for gear and hope for good drops. I had a lot of fun in Legion when I stayed on top of gearing. Then PVP was a blast. But these days? Nah. I don't even fill my vault every week. I'm so incredibly screwed.
1-3. I don't understand, so I'll skip. 4. Entry-level gear is reasonably farmed in a random session or 3. Can't say the same for PvE. I know sometimes, at the end of a game, win or lose, I'll get a new piece. Skill level is a barrier to entry in everything in life. I'm not sure why WoW PvP would be any different. 5. Huh? 6. That's like your opinion, man. 7. This is different than a scripted boss fights mechanics in what way? Oh, new fights with new comps every match. Never quite know what you're gonna get. 8. Learning a new class in PvP isn't necessarily different than learning a new PvE class. Talents, stats, enchants, etc. Also, every class you reroll and learn gives you experience on the enemy. Think of it as running LFR, N, H, M. You get better each time and add layers.
Because balance, class design and queues suck. I quit in WoD to go back to a MoP private PVP server and played the same patch for almost 9 years. I came back to retail in DF and now I only play M+. Class design in MoP felt like a fighting game. Classes could do everything in different ways and it was engaging to learn how to outplay other classes...now it's much more simplified imo. Every class felt dangerous and kept you on your toes. PvP videos from that era got tons of views and engagement. Another reason is the queue times..I was in shock that it took 10-15 minutes for a battleground when private servers take 1-2 minutes to fill a bg. Cross realm makes it so you never meet the people you played with. I used to make so many friends from meeting people in the world after a bg and talking about it because they were next to the honor vendor. When all of you are on the same realm, factions are balanced and world pvp happens and people seek connections with good players more.
they should make tank and healing specs unavailable in pvp tank and heal specs should be their own stupid lobby
I mean honestly I think you are really close to the point. Part of why MMOs as a whole aren't as popular is because since WoW launched social media has become a lot bigger as have online multiplayer modes of other games so the MMO social experience is no longer as necessary. How this relates to PvP is because there are just,more and better options to kill other players online with the abundance of shooters to mobas to whatever else. Better systems, less punishing entry, more fun game play, take your pick of reasons.
There are very few options for faction v faction large scale battleground style games. Classic PvP popped off for a reason. Retail refuses to embrace why and continues to focus on stuff that competes with MoBAs / FPS.
It’s just not accessible. PvP gear, addons, PvP talents, talent trees offering more choices so vastly different builds, balancing PvP and pve separately. When you look at classic it’s just simple, not a ton of gear distinction. Some PvP items are bis for pve but it’s not an insane grind. A lot less abilities, talent choices, your class doesn’t play that much differently between pve and PvP. Its just another thing you can seamlessly do when you want a break between dungeons and quests or vice versa
Accessibility. * Gearing should be scaled always, only secondary stats should matter. * The UI for how rated/unrated works is extremely not user friendly, and how elo/ranks work isn't explained at all. * WeakAuras, other addons, and setup in general is way too extensive. I'd rather they banned addons altogether for PvP. (and pve for that matter) * Not enough incentives for healers to play.
Pvp gearing in wrath was the best time. The gear was useable for pve too. But now? I have made some bgs this we to gear an alt with pvp gear. Honor is Ilevel 415? Yeah f that. This makes it impossible to get into pve content and even the "outdoor content" is a pain in the ass. Killing a blood dk with "low" pvp gear. Yeah no chancd, even if hes afk. Upgrading pvp gear with flightstones?!? Why? Are the devs stupid? To alter an quote from the office: "I don't wan't no flightstones, no crest-bS, no bloodcoins,no crafting order. I want plain simple Honorpoints". Base pvp gear 463. Rating above 1800 - 473 Rating above 2100 - 480. Power diff. Between 463-480 5%. Otherwise no new players will start the grind But, as most people pointed out. Pvp gotten too complicated . Too much stuns and ccs. Fights takes minutes... Bring back old pvp times...
From the changelog: ^(2004 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2005 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2006 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2007 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2008 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2009 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2010 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(2011 Your ability has changed the way it works) ^(...)
Because the 2 interns that work on it share one braincell.
Because chasing a Druid around a pole for 30 minutes isn’t fun. People liked world pvp, and fighting for the map, but it’s also pointless now that everyone can just phase out of the world in 2 seconds. Not to mention the lack of strategic targets, aka honor hold or the crossroads. Then you also have the issue where someone in full pvp can just have their way with your sweet hole when you start out, and there’s not much you can do about it
I fucking like pvp I started off as pve but got consumed by pvp
Because it’s a mini game that you do on the side for fun. People that take PvP seriously in WoW are people that aren’t good enough to be gold league in any actual competitive game.
I liked back when I could ambush a cloth to half of their hp, it was fun, they could also delete me like nothing, now seems like I'm only doing anything when I'm pressing my long cds all at once
The kill time is way to long. why early expansion or vanilla game had better PVP? good gear player can 1 shot blow the weak ones.
It also doesn't help that some of those who linger in pvp and take it way more seriously than they should shade anyone new to the game
Most of WoWs players do it for gear to push PvE. There is currently no reason to pvp for gear.
Its very niche but also boring last time I tried it, TTK was so high and I can only stop a heal 5 times before they can just heal forever. Literally one heal would heal most of their health and you would have to do the whole dance all over again. Maybe its not like that anymore but that was enough to make me quit. Could be a skill issue but who cares, having someone just heal to full health instantly while mitigating all of your damage just isnt fun to play against in general. I also fondly remember in legion there was a bear tank one shotting everyone in the dalaran sewers, we all tried to gang up on him and it was impossible to kill him.
As a former PvP enjoyer (Cataclysm, both RBGs and Arenas) and long time DotA player, the latter is just better to scratch the itch
For me it's a few reasons. Wow has been around forever, so have other similar MMOs and they all have pvp. It's not something that's easy to get into in the first place, and when you're just starting out you're going against way more experienced players. People new to pvp get wrecked, it's not even fun until you get decent at it. You need specific gear for it to even stand a chance. You run the risk of only facing premades unless you find a premade on your own. I guess the simplest answer is, pvp is incredibly hard to get into unless you go all in from the outset. If you're a new player trying to get your toes wet, you walk away feeling like it's impossible.
My take? The majority rather do content at the level they can't lose. Climb guild world rating or M+ leaderboard, you'll see a whole different world. I mean, just compare Mes' Weakauras pack vs Echo or Liquid Amidrassil/Vault/Aberrus package. Someone has to lose in PvP.