WOW, Season 4. Arena or GTFO

[Doligan]

...because Shadowknights were so popular in EQ, amirite?

They are putting exp penalties in wow now?

[Dumar]

oh yeah, nostalgia. everyone looks back with the biggest, brightest rose colored classes; that's the cause of all the whining, duh. everything old is bad. everything new is good. everything released just gets better and better. look at music, better and better. movies? better and better. games? better and better.

eq and wow? lol rose colored glasses! eq was awful. look at wow, so much better because it's more new. i can't believe all the nostalgia in this thread. TAKE THOSE GLASSES OFF! NOTHING OLD CAN BE BETTER THAN NEW, OKAY?

[Makata]

So, not directly pertaining to arena (though this thread has already been hijacked away from it anyway), Scare Beast just got bumped to 30 yards and instant cast. Much needed for pve / leveling but yet another "fuck you" to ferals. It's not exactly going to amount to anything significant in pvp, just amusing they'd take the time to change it. I read somewhere that kalgan shelved his warrior and started playing his hunter. Coincidence?

[Kreugen]

Originally Posted by rinthea

Group combat sucks balls.

wat

[Miele]

Originally Posted by Makata

So, not directly pertaining to arena (though this thread has already been hijacked away from it anyway), Scare Beast just got bumped to 30 yards and instant cast. Much needed for pve / leveling but yet another "fuck you" to ferals. It's not exactly going to amount to anything significant in pvp, just amusing they'd take the time to change it. I read somewhere that kalgan shelved his warrior and started playing his hunter. Coincidence?

Kalgan should just stop polluting the game.
I don't think scare beast change is a big deal for PvE, I used it before at times, nothing game breaking and about PvP... who gives a damn?

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Miele

Kalgan should just stop polluting the game.
I don't think scare beast change is a big deal for PvE, I used it before at times, nothing game breaking and about PvP... who gives a damn?

/shrug .. you probably never used it leveling up because it's ridiculously hard to use. 10 yard range, casting time, and only 1 mob type. But in beast heavy areas (read: most leveling spots) it's now going to become a very useful tool. As far as pvp, again not big at all, it's mostly just a 'fuck you' to ferals. It would be like adding "Using this ability also gives you an extra 10% chance to resist curse of agony" onto cloak of shadows; would barely change a thing, but still kind of insulting.

[spronk]

DKs will be even more popular than people imagine, because they will in fact be super OP originally. Blizzard WANTS everyone to level a DK to 80 and play on it for a few months. Historically they have done everything they possibly can to get people to try the new stuff.

However once everyone and their mother are playing DKs, they will start nerfing them and buffing other classes. Until the pops balance out more as FOTMs go back to other classes. This basically gives them a year of dev time where all they have to do is minor tweak to classes to keep people playing, not even put in new content.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by spronk

This basically gives them a year of dev time where all they have to do is minor tweak to classes to keep people playing, not even put in new content.

Eh, I'm not so sure. I think that the whole gear treadmill system that Blizzard's been using as their main attraction is starting to get boring for a whole lot of people, and given the changes implemented in BC, it doesn't look like WotLK is going to do much to solve this game's problems.

If the competition this year is even remotely credible (as it looks to be), then Blizzard's gonna need a lot more than the status quo to keep people interested. A whole lot of what made old WoW fun (instances like BRD, exploration, world PvP, fun dragon kiting, etc) is dead or being killed off, and when you take all that away, you've only got inertia keeping people there. I don't think that'll be enough.

[column]

Originally Posted by Miele

Kalgan should just stop polluting the game.
I don't think scare beast change is a big deal for PvE, I used it before at times, nothing game breaking and about PvP... who gives a damn?

Man,everyone says Fuck the PVP
I think I'm the only one that likes the PVP better then the PVE lulz.

My first character in WOW I leveled to 60 exclusively in BG's hehe and took him to the top. I'm addicted to Duels/Battlegrounds/arenas I think....

Just started again recently to try the game out,and made a enhancemnet shaman for pve,but hell if I didnt get sucked into the PVP world after level 10,and I can't stop playing ..

[Miele]

Originally Posted by column

Man,everyone says Fuck the PVP
I think I'm the only one that likes the PVP better then the PVE lulz.

My first character in WOW I leveled to 60 exclusively in BG's hehe and took him to the top. I'm addicted to Duels/Battlegrounds/arenas I think....

Just started again recently to try the game out,and made a enhancemnet shaman for pve,but hell if I didnt get sucked into the PVP world after level 10,and I can't stop playing ..

Don't get me wrong, PvP is (or should I say "was") a fun side dish, but I don't like the approach Blizzard is having towards it. It's been stated many times on these boards: "a fast loss is better than a long win", "welfare epics" and all the countless AV threads, including derails included some comments that made me shiver. How is that "good PvP"?

WoW offers nothing in PvP right now (aside from gear you could argue), it used to offer fun without a precise goal at the start, then some gear for the casual or good gear for the no lifers, now gear for everyone, but the bad part is that you can lose all the way to full or almost full epic gear, which is quite dumb.
It's like saying: if you wipe 100 times on Illidan you'll get 2 warglaives, hell, there would be a queue of rogues and warriors from black temple to blade edge mountains. It doesn't make sense, it's not particularly fun if you have to do X matches of BG/Arena to actually have fun in one of them, if you're lucky, that is.

I'm not even going into class balance, another arena-enhanced disaster, because when you do world PvP or BGs, the balance factor is somewhat limited by the randomness of the encounter, you can't predict who you're going to fight, nor where this is going to happen, also you have stuff like engineering gadgets that can help you, potions, etc.

I don't know if they can fix this, for sure not until Kalgan considers arena the end of all things.
WoW had a fantastic PvE from 2004 to 2006, then TBC came out and while adding interesting things, many other were watered down, dungeons being the first and most glaring. Are raids better or worse? I don't know really, never did a raid in TBC so far, I'd like to know some opinions about this as well.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Well, nobody really wants them to completely forego pumping PvP....but arena isn't exactly PvP as it should be. I mean, technically it's pvp, but not in a way that anybody really wants other then the chest-thumping/win-trading 2200+ rated retards.

What's really pissing everyone off is that Blizzard has flat out said, "Fuck pvp balance" choosing instead it's handful of favorite class/spec's for arena and balancing those in their respective overpowered 2/3/5's bracket. And everybody else suffers.

Honestly, they should focus on battleground/world pvp and make arena have no rewards attached to it. None. Just the rating system. That's it. ~Maybe~ grant free honor points at the end of the season.

[column]

I havent tried the arenas yet,but they definately need more battlegrounds.

Even a reskin of the current ones would be nice just to mix it up.

[Phoenix]

Fat chance Zehn.

Blizzard has consistantly said from the get go fuck world pvp and pussified it into nothing but BGs/Arenas since Release. Face it, they cater to the masses, not the people on this board. I whole heartily agree with you in regards to the Arenas, they are not PvP. PvP isnt min/maxing 2/3/5 classes, comparing your competition via the Armory and being fully buffed before each and every fight.

Oh do I long for the days of town raids or sneaking into Ogrimmar to assassinate people. Nothing was funner as a rogue sneaking around there and killing people who where still pvp flagged then running off only to do it again.

Hopefully WAR will come somewhat close to what it says for PvP.

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Oh do I long for the days of town raids or sneaking into Ogrimmar to assassinate people. Nothing was funner as a rogue sneaking around there and killing people who where still pvp flagged then running off only to do it again.

Maybe if you're a fag.

Funnest time in recent history we had was 3 of us were doing the poison the peons quest for the dragonmaw. So one of the camps bugs out, we're fucked, need another gland. We zip up to the greater diemetredons just north of that scryer outpost. There's an alliance priest killing this crap. Well, fuck you buddy, we need a fucking gland, and you're killing our gland droppers. We bitch slap em, start killing stuff and out of fucking nowhere 4 more people land, the priest rezzes, and we proceed to whoop the living crap out of all of them while they're GY zerging us. Killed them 2 or 3 times each, enough to give them a rez timer long enough for us to mount up and finish the quest.

THAT's what makes world pvp fun, not being some faggot that ganks you and runs away until he can stealth again. Unfortunately, with population imbalances, world pvp isn't anything more than a novelty. You can't actually make a progression system out of it without destroying the entire pvp flagged world. With that said, all they really need to do is put some thought into making the arena system actually MEAN something. Gear doesn't mean shit, you can't prove you won any matches, or even played more than the 30% required on a point selling team. Rating means nothing, only proves you play an overpowered class on an overpowered team, and even the title means nothing, since everyone win trades anyway. Really it's a self contained, completely worthless ranking system. I see what they were trying to accomplish, but every single aspect is so exploitable that it makes no difference at all whether you're rated 1600 or 2600. You still can't tell who the better players are.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Arena won't ever mean shit because it's impossible to balance in an MMO and the rewards attached to it need to be available to everyone in order to keep them willing to compete.

What they could have done with world PvP is just make a new 'hotzone' every week. The honor you receive for killing in that zone is also augmented by how outnumbered you are. So if you're outnumbered 100 to 50, you get a 200% bonus on top of the already existing 200% bonus. Cap it at about, say, 500%.

Add a 'World defense warmaster' to every major city (minus Shatt perhaps). He gives you a special 'hearthstone' you can use to hearth to the pvp zones inn.

Pvp hoztone only graveyards become activated during this time. If you died due to pvp you go to your factions pvp graveyard. These GY's operate like BG GY's. To prevent GY Camping, powerful NPC's and/or pathing will prevent enemies from getting near it.

Add conquerable objectives to every zone that are only active during the pvp hotweek. Taking these objectives gives the conquering team various bonuses...such as an immediate faction boost depending on the zone (Perhaps Gadgetzan if in Tanaris, or Argent Dawn if in Plaguelands), mounts are 10% faster in that zone, if you conquer all the pvp objectives everyone gets a temporary 5 minute soulstone buff, etc...etc...however it also gives the 'losing team' a buff. "The resolute" or some such nonsense that gives them a hp/damage buff.

I'm sure it has it's flaws...but it's a start. I posted this along with my other pvp fixes, but they should up the amount of honor you get for killing someone (up to 50~100), but just cap how much honor you can spend on gear each week (5~10k perhaps). Toss in extra's you can spend honor on that don't count towards the limit (various consumables like goblin claymore mines and potions/food, pvp gems, flavor items, etc...) and you already are on your first step towards making the system -far- more entertaining.