WOW, Season 4. Arena or GTFO

[Angerz]

Originally Posted by 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.

That's PVP I would participate in, and I try my best to shun WoW PVP

[Draegan]

Nice idea there Zhen.

[Grave]

Agreed. Sounds pretty fun, and I'm a PVE guy.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

I like that idea, really I do, except for the honor spend cap. Combine it with your previous idea of non-split honor, and I think you have a winner. Objectives that multiply your honor gained per kill, along with a zonewide buff for the "hotzone."

Here's what I see:

In Orgrimmar, the battle cry goes out that the Alliance are invading Stonetalon Mountains. The Warbringer passes out a Rune of Translocation that teleports you to the closest city(1 hour cooldown), and you head off.

When you arrive, you are debuffed with a spell that allows only special PvP gear to damage you, and in turn, only PvP gear helps to mitigate this damage (Sanguine damage, Sanguine resistance). It also converts all of your damage spells and abilities into dealing Sanguine damage. The Horde Warbringer gives you a quest to earn your gear and fight to repel the Alliance and stop them from completing their objectives. He passes out white quality armor that has no armor, only Sanguine Resistance, and white quality weaponry that only deals Sanguine damage. You then can do various objectives in the zone that involve killing the Alliance, taking objectives, gathering supplies, etc.

The gear itself is relatively easy to upgrade to green, tougher to blue, and even harder to get to purple, and only the very dedicated will be able to use the legendary pvp gear.

It works the same way that the Sunmote SSO quartermaster works... gear upgrades cost your white armor + X tokens, in addition to having completed quest Y.

This way, you get a way to seperate PvP gear from PvE balance, and allow others to have "pure" World PvP that actually involves shifting battlegrounds (every zone is available for these modifications).

[Izuldan]

They could also take a page out of FFXI's playbook, where once you control the zone, certain vendors appear that will sell rare stuff only to the side that controls the zone.....nothing earth-shattering or balance-breaking. It could be simple things such as ingredients to make certain cooking recipes, cheaper repair prices, food = manna biscuits. Etc.

They could also put in special graveyards that are only usable for those that control the zone. For example, the GY for the Hellfire penninsula is far from the instances (at least for Horde, not sure about Alliance, but it's a fair run). Well, if say the Horde "control" the zone (determined by some weekly count, not just controlling the 3 towers for example), then they can access the graveyard which can be like near the summoning stone.

In any case, there are plenty of ideas that can make world PvP viable. I haven't played FFXI in forever, but I remember when my linkshell would decide where to go to exp based on how our faction was doing in the certain zone, because we needed to kill more beasts there so we could control it.

[Sunder]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

Combine it with your previous idea of non-split honor, and I think you have a winner.

So healers need not even engage in PvP battles. Yeah, great idea.

[Kais[]]

Zhen's hotzone idea is fantastic.

[Zerai]

WoW: Planetside Edition. Would be pretty epic. Basically Zhen's idea to the T.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Originally Posted by Sunder

So healers need not even engage in PvP battles. Yeah, great idea.

Easy tiger, I meant when you'd normally get honor (4, 6, 8, etc), you get the full 20 that people are worth solo, which is especially apt now that honor isn't the best gear, so it doesn't matter if you "exploit" it to get honor.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

so it doesn't matter if you "exploit" it to get honor.

This logic is fail.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Sunder

So healers need not even engage in PvP battles. Yeah, great idea.

He was refering to honor not being reduced based on the number of people involved in the kill. IE: if 50 people kill 1 dude, everyone gets full honor rather then 1 honor point the honor being divided.

It's why the removal of dimi returns on kills was kinda pointless in AV. Before in an average AV you made maybe 50~100 honor based on just kills. Now you get....50~100 honor based on just kills. Hell, even in WSG you still only get like 2-4 honor for a kill.

Anyways...

Grobbee

I don't think you need to make seperate gear sets. You just need some meta-stats that are more valuable in one area then they are in others. Priest gear is the most obvious disparity. PvE gear is loaded with spirit and raw +heal, PvP gear has stamina/resilience.

If they could find that kind of balance for all classes/spec's, you wouldn't need to create a brand new pvp-only meta stat.

The honor spend cap is mostly in place so you can make getting honor faster yet still control the rate at which gear enters the system. It more directly mirrors PvE content in that regard. I could spend 144 hours in Black Temple, doesn't mean I can kill Illidan twice that week. Same deal essentially.

If you reduce the holding cap to something like 20k, you also don't have people grinding 75k honor the first week and then just spending 2 months collecting loot and it may even encourage them to spend points on the various non-capped items.

I mean, if you make getting honor a factor of actually killing as many people as possible rather then killing Drek'Thar as fast as possible, make it accumulate faster, then just give them tons of shit to spend it on...

Anyways...

You can do lots of shit with this too. Bring back pvp ranks but make it unlock gimic items/abilities instead and base it on individual weekly stats rather then ranking over time. IE: Whoever got the most honor on week 1 gets the 'warlord title' for the next two weeks, regardless of what he does. As warlord, he gains access to, fuck it, the ability to call down an airstrike in the pvp hotzone for 1k honor once an hour.

Add destrucable locations, make semi-dynamic content (whoever 'won' the last time that zone was a hotzone now needs to prevent the other team from accomplishing the pvp objectives or they lose. Winning team gets 20% bonus xp earned for in that zone, mounts are 20% faster, gets a soulstone buff while in zone. Hell, this is the special olympics, give the losers something as well. Access to new quests, 'Rebuilding Tarren Mill'), add special pvp-only abilities you can purchase with honor (100k honor and you get purchase a 5 minute cooldown 'warstomp' ability for your mount).

But it won't happen. Welcome to World of Railshooterdungeonsandcookiecutterarenacraft.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

This logic is fail.

So, arranging world pvp where everyone kills everyone with no diminishing returns for t4-t5 gear is worse than win-trading or point-selling for t6 gear?

At least in Zehn's or my system, time and effort is rewarded in meaningful server-wide pvp... than standing around a goblin in a tuxedo.

[Lost Ranger]

Great idea Zehn. I really wish they would do something like that instead of the BG/arena style games we get now. The best pvp experience I have had was during the TM/SS days. I loved the insane battles that would take place during prime time.

I love the consumables idea too. Make everyone give a ton more honor but add in things that will keep people spending honor every week. claymore mines just sounds like waaaay too much fun heh.

[Zest]

World PvP is dead until it can provide more honor/hour than AV.

No one cares about zone wide buffs or special vendors. All they care about is honor.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

So, arranging world pvp where everyone kills everyone with no diminishing returns for t4-t5 gear is worse than win-trading or point-selling for t6 gear?

What you said was that honor gear wasn't the best gear, so it's ok if people exploit. You can say something else if you want, but only after you take that back.