Losing 5v5 matches gives more arena points than winning 2v2
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 21st 2007 at 10:18AM
How much time have you all spent in the arenas so far? I've played a few skirmishes, but most of my time lately has been spent making my way up to 70. A friend and I had planned to roll a 2v2 arena team, but now I'm not so sure: the latest math done by players says that if you lose a 5v5 match, you actually earn more arena points than if you win a 2v2 match.Paladinsucks has the tip on this one: they link to this forum post by Darkhorse on Mannoroth that lays out the problem pretty well. Basically (and regular readers will know how bad I am at math), Blizzard has put a reduction to 60% on arena points earned from a 2v2 rating. The reason is because consider that it takes more skill to beat a 5man group than a 2man group. Here's the numbers crunch-- I'll be staying away from those, except to say that winning 10 arena games in 2v2 nets you only 335 arena points, while losing 10 5v5 games will still grant you 377 arena points. If gaining points is your goal, you're way better off messing around in 5v5 rather than clawing your way to the top through 2v2.
Now, not everyone is after points necessarily-- Blizzard obviously wants the 2v2 people to do it for the glory, not the points. And Drysc does point out that these numbers are only after one week of winning or losing-- if you continue to win in 2v2, you'll get lots more points than losing in any bracket, while if you continue to lose in 5v5, your points will start to drop pretty precipitously. As for solutions, the current setup is "working as intended," but lots of players are asking for the points reduction on the 2v2 and 3v3 matches to be weakened-- 2v2 shouldn't be worth as much as 5v5, but it shouldn't be worth nothing. Whether or not Blizzard will go for that remains to be seen. Looks like I better find three more people and make a 5v5 team.
Filed under: Blizzard, PvP, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Razhlok Feb 21st 2007 11:07AM
Ummm... why don't you learn how the arena system works before you blog and complain about it. You aren't awarded arena points for winning matches. You are awarded arena points based on your team's rating. you gain/lose rating based on the team's rating you beat or lose to.
Arena points are based on your team's rating for the week. 2v2 receives 60% of the points they would have earned on a 5v5 team with the same team rating. 3v3 receives 80% of the points they would have earned on a 5v5 team.
If you look at the formula for caculating arena points based on rating you'll see that when you gain higher than a 1500 rating the amount of points awarded from that rating increases exponentially (sp). So if you are struggling in the 5man circuit with a 1300 rating (yields: 367 pts), but, can clean up with a buddy on teh 2man with a 1800 rating (yields: 448 pts) then you'll earn more points in the 2man.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Arena_Point
Zuuler Feb 21st 2007 11:21AM
@1
I think he hinted at that at the end of his article.
Mike Schramm Feb 21st 2007 11:32AM
Raz, that's true. If you keep winning, you'll get lots of points, no matter what bracket you're in. But it seems imbalanced that for that first week, you can put no effort into your 5v5 matches, and still gain more points than a team that wins all of their 2v2 matches.
Ragbar Feb 21st 2007 11:35AM
I've been posting on the PvP forums as much as I can to help clear up nightmare math like this...
"the latest math done by players says that if you lose a 5v5 match, you actually earn more arena points than if you win a 2v2 match"
That is so disgustingly wrong, it almost makes me sick. When you lose a game, you lose rating, whether it is 2v2 or 5v5. So when you lose a 5v5, you aren't "earning" anything. If you lose rating, you lose points, if you gain rating, you gain points. Thefore the above statement is completely false and incorrect.
The only difference between 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 is that the amount of Arena Points you get for your rating is not as high at 2v2 or 3v3 as it is 5v5.
However, there is so much complaining and QQing going on about the difference in Arena Point distribution.
I completely agree with Blizzards reasoning and I have no problems with what they are doing. 2v2 and 3v3 allow for certain class combinations that can be seriously powerful. 5v5 forces a lot more variety and therefore it's a lot more competitive and challenging.
I currently do not belong to a 5v5 team (I leveled my alt to 70 before my main, and I don't think I'm as skilled on my new priest as I was on my mage, apparently my guild agrees). So I formed a 3v3 team that so far as earned me 400 Arena points for a rating of 1600. If I can get that rating up to around 2000, I'll be earning almost 850 Arena points a week, which is about a new Gladiator item every other week.
If I had the same rating on a 5v5 team, I'd be making 1050 Arena Points per week. So we're talking about a difference of what, 200 points?
That means if the ratings stay consistent, the players on the 5v5 team will be able to buy an extra item (figure a sale price of 1500 Arena points) after 8 weeks of Arena.
What's the big deal?
Gurei Feb 22nd 2007 11:38AM
I am cool if the system gives more points for 5vs5 than 2vs2,but what makes me angry is that my team tried hard to do our best we won a lot and some dude comes saying he has more than us and lost most of the time.
so wtf? does these reward skill or not? right now im about to do a 5vs5 just to do the 10 must have arenas of the week and get the free points.
david Mar 3rd 2007 11:09AM
I am trying to find out what happens if you are a member of all 3 team types. Are the ratings of each team awarded points or do they just take the team with the best rating?
thiefses Apr 6th 2007 12:20AM
i have a 2v2 team, a few weeks ago, we had some bad runs, after 12 games our rating actually went from 1580 to 1579, it went down a whole point, after the Tuesday bs, we earned a little over 300 arena points for that one lost rating point