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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsDrysc reveals new arena season 4 rating requirements and rules
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 22nd 2008 at 1:40PM
Drysc has just posted what may soon be known as the death knell of "welfare epics," announcing new arena season 4 rating requirements for the brutal gladiator gear that extend not only to the shoulders and weapon, but to many other pieces of gear as well, even to honor-purchased gear. We've seen some of the gear leaked recently, and some of the ratings requirements leaked a bit earlier than that, but now we have the official whole picture. Check out the word of Drysc after the jump.
When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800
The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none
In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none
The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.
Drysc also announced some new arena rules for the upcoming season:
1. If a character's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
2. If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team's rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.
Together, these rules (which Tom Chilton alluded to but did not reveal in a recent interview) should mean that a person cannot simply ride a high rating team to victory, but will instead need to fight their way up the ladder to gain points regardless of what team they join.
It looks like the era of "welfare epics" may well be over now. With these new requirements, teams will have to genuinely work hard to get the gear they desire, and it should hopefully lead to a bit less resentment between the PvE and PvP factions. These new rating requirements, combined with the new rules meant to prevent people from buying points, should also hopefully lead to fairer arena games between equally geared teams, at least within another season or two.
With the revelation of these rules, the speculation of the start of the new arena season can probably begin in earnest as well. Saving your points (or even your honor) for Season 4 may not be as effective anymore though, if you can't also muster up the ratings to purchase the gear.
Filed under: Items, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Battlegrounds, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 7)
crispy Apr 22nd 2008 3:22PM
Good for high-end pvpers I guess. I could really careless, I am not a big pvper and only did arenas (torturous) to stay alive longer in BGs (which I actually have fun in). Probably will quit arenas and just stick to BGs in b/t raids (my first love in WoW). You know that people in the 1800s range now will be the 1500s in S4; I can see their QQs coming when the change happens.
The "terribads" as some elitists like to call the casual pvpers will probably either stick with BGs or move on to other games. At this point though, I don't see the point of even investing time in season 4 gear. It'll all be worthless by the end of the fall anyway. I know many people felt the same way about raiding when TBC was approaching, but since I find raiding just for the sake of it fun, I don't see it that way. I'm sure hardcore PvPers have fun doing arenas and that's cool by me, it's their $15.
Fozz May 1st 2008 1:43AM
Crispy,
Your comment is so full of win and understanding I had to read it twice, and am still doubtful you are a high end raider (joking).
On a serious note, the worst thing about WoW is the subtle resentment, bordering on outright hatred that so called pros seem to have for scrubs or casuals.
I don't understand it, and frankly, it better be on Blizz's list of "things that could kill us if we don't address them powerfully."
Thanks for your intelligent, mature posts here. It gives me a bit of hope.
Heraclea Apr 22nd 2008 3:28PM
Yep, I'm a scrub PvP player. My arena team consists of people I want to play with, and who do not respec into the approved PvP specs, but just come as they are and play to have fun and grind the points. I'm still the same old Fury warrior I always have been. I take people on the teams who are friends of mine, regardless of spec, and regardless of whether the combo is uber or not. The person I arena most is a paladin, and we get eaten alive by the god-mode mages. Hell, we've been soloed by a god-mode mage.
My ratings have never been above 1500. It's only recently risen above 1100. But as long as I was getting points, I didn't care.
Blizzard is telling me that there ain't no point anymore. Season 4 will be a good time to catch up on my reading, since I have one less thing to do playing Warcraft. I don't care, mostly because I really don't like PvP. I don't come expecting to win. I don't mind losing, so long as losing bears an eventual reward.
What those of you who applaud this malarkey need to wake up to, though, is that you NEED ME. Really, you do. For your rating to rise, somebody's must fall. Very simply, the arena system needs to have *regular* players like myself who *really don't care* if their ratings fall within the bottom 50% of the ladder. If the supply of such players dries up, it will become harder and harder for experienced arena players to get a leg up in the hierarchy. Arena will become harder and more hard-core, and some of you may enjoy that, but quite a few will be in for a rude surprise.
And Blizzard has just told us that we needn't bother trying.
Banishaga Apr 22nd 2008 3:56PM
I like the change. It reminds me of the old days when not everyone was running around in the same gear. You will have to be better than average to get the best gear. Without season 4 gear you can still win in you division. For the people complaining it is just like when you were a kid and you were on a basketball team. You may not win them all, but the fun is in the playing of the game. If you don't win the championship, you don't get the trophy.
Ryan Apr 22nd 2008 3:58PM
Yawn, loot treadmill keeps on spinnin'.
krat2 Apr 22nd 2008 4:00PM
I find this change interesting, though unfortunate.
Background: I detest world PvP. I am not a fan of the Battlegrounds, with that endless "die... run back... die... run back... ad infinitum." I enjoy the Arena somewhat, but I'm not overly competitive about it. I want to play with my friends, and they want to play with each other as well. If we do not have the "right" classes and Talent specs to win... so what? We're having fun, and in general we're going up against teams that also are not excellent. For our caliber of play, this is fine. We do the best we can given our "fun first" motto.
For me, this change on the surface means very little. I will readily admit that I'm not a good PvPer. You can stick me in the best PvP gear possible, pit me against a good PvPer in greens, and I will likely lose. I am okay with this. As such, I do not need or deserve access to the "bleeding edge" PvP gear. I'm fine with what I can get, but need to know that I can eventually get something.
There are, however, people on our team who ARE good at PvP. They actively enjoy the Battlegrounds, and are in there a lot. For them, slumming with a PvP schlep like me (and a few others) in the Arena was fine, because we still had fun. They would get their points eventually... perhaps not as fast as they would if they were on a hardcore team, but eventually. I dare say, also, that they have more fun with friends than they would if it was more cutthroat.
These changes basically remove from the list of Arena participants all people like me. I really see little point for me to go in there, and know that several teammates will feel the same way. Basically, these changes spell the end of teams like ours. Given that S3 shoulders and weapons will maintain requirements once S4 starts, I see no reason that S4 will not also keep the same (or similar) requirements when S5 comes down the pipe in the future. End result: There is no point for the Arena for teams like ours.
When you remove the bottom of the food chain -- teams like mine -- the top of the food chain suffers. Without weaker teams from whom to draw wins, mid-tier teams will suffer. They will become the "new 1500s". Eventually, frustration may lead those people to also leave the Arena, extending the cycle. The Battlegrounds will become the only option for these people, but if the trend is that Battleground pieces will also require Arena ratings... what then?
This very well could lead to an interesting cycle of decline for the Arena. Hardcore raiders may revel in that, but I find it unfortunate. When you make an area of play onerous or pointless, thus removing options, it's a bad thing for the health of the game.
Ras Gonzo Apr 22nd 2008 4:01PM
F#@* Arenas! This just confirms that WoW has become a epeen sport that revolves around a mini game which only a few classes with the same build wins, ya real fun...NOT. A feral druid can not get any of that gear w/o respecing to a gay healer. F THAT!
Dilunae Apr 22nd 2008 4:20PM
As in life, WOW has been about those who put in the most effort get the most rewards. Don't have enough time to play WOW like a crack addict? That's fine. Don't have enough time to where even playing casually gets you something? Find another game. MMO's are not for the casual...that is what the Xbox is for. I certainly don't have enough time to play 10 different toons so I focus on my hunter and reap the benefits of being able to do that. I arena with friends, am skilled at my class and get very far PVE wise and occasionally PVP. People need to stop QQing that they can't get their welfare lewtz. Everyone has the time to play 10 arena games (even now that the queue times have decreased). The pleasure behind playing an MMO is largely about your skill as a player otherwise you are setting yourself up to continue to receive total pwnage in PVP and a lack of invitations to raids if you can't play your toon. So why not reward the best players with the best gear? I will be the first to accept defeat at the hands of better skilled players. This system is designed to get people to PLAY THE GAME. Although what they need to do is make ALL the pvp gear require something(the way it used to be). Requiring arena ratings is a way of cuttng down on afk'ers. I bet you some of the same people QQing are the same jerks who afk during bg's. You can't afk your way to good arena ratings. So shut up and play the damn game.
Ryan Apr 22nd 2008 4:31PM
While you're right about WoW, I don't think you're correct about how MMO's in general should operate. I think there is room for an MMO that's mostly about skill and not about a loot treadmill. What I find fun in games is competition, and having such a gear discrepancy between those who play irregularly and those who play regularly hinders that competition. I don't care if a person only plays 2 hours a week, if they're better than me they should be able to beat me. I don't want to be able to roll over somebody else on gear alone. Obviously that's not going to be WoW, but whatever game I move onto next that will be something that I'll definitely look for. Though with the subscription model companies might not want to give up the carrot for their players; maybe I'll just go back to RTS games, where skill matters, grinding doesn't.
Halo Apr 22nd 2008 4:24PM
Blizzard missed a huge flaw with their proposed S4 changes.
Many of us have run out of casual PvE content are only playing the PvP game, in particular the Arena. We've overlooked the fact that in many brackets only cater to specific class combinations. We've tolerated this imbalance due to the fact that even with a half decent rating, we'd eventually achieve a full arena set (split over 2 seasons to obtain shoulders).
The S4 changes takes a few steps in the right direction, but will lead to many canceled accounts in the near future.
Pro:
Helps alleviate win/rating trading
Distinguishes the better players
Cons:
Those of us who've collected 4/5 S3 have nothing left to pvp for. Some of the S4 ratings are impossible for certain class combinations to achieve.
I foresee S3 geared players hitting their team's potential max, jumping from team to team until they realize they can't get any higher, and then getting bored with the game. In a few weeks time, there will be no gear left for these players to work towards. If these changes get applied, many players in the 1200-1700 brackets are going to quit until the expansion comes out.
Pzychotix Apr 22nd 2008 4:46PM
Wrong. In fact, it'll increase win trading, since every average joe now needs rating to get pieces.
The cons are increased even more this time around. 2000 rating is achievable by almost any team makeup, given enough time and skill. I've seen an amazing hunter/rogue team coordinate CCs so well that my War/Dru time was left dazed when we played them the first time around. But I'm no where near the top tier players of 2200+ rating. Isn't it enough that Netherdrake is given to those top tier players? Why must the shoulders, a piece of gear that actually affects play, be reserved for those people too? A 2050 rating on the weapons is almost ridiculously high for many classes also.
kenney Apr 22nd 2008 4:27PM
The nature of arena is really changing. Originally- the mechanics were such that you had a really challenging fight every time, but rarely one you had no hope of winning. The gear was normalized, and the brackets worked- so you were always fighting similarly geared teams of comparable skill.
Now- the rating requirements combine with the practice of point selling to make it so that you frequently fight more skilled players in better gear, who essentially farm you for points.
I think Blizzard experimented with ways to put everyone on equal footing in arenas, but has discarded that objective. It's too bad because that was a nice contrast to battlegrounds.
JD Apr 22nd 2008 4:43PM
This really does aggravate me. I don't mind needing a rating requirement for certain stuff. I like how it was implemented in S3. This, however, is going way too far. Basically, what's going to happen is that everyone who started arenas from the beginning and saved up all their points and got all the top PvP gear first when S3 came around are merely going to smash through everybody yet again and just upgrade all their S3 stuff to S4, while all those guys in the middle (I play on a team that hovers around the 1600 mark) are going to get screwed over yet again because of getting horridly overgeared. I don't consider myself a bad player by any means; I think me and my friend are smarter than most teams we get paired off against, but gear can make any pair of morons indestructable- as will most likely be the case this new season.
And besides; with the new season, all those top ranked teams from this current season? Yeah, they'll be 1500 just like everyone else. Know what that means? More opportunities for the casual PvPers to get smashed so that all the S3 geared folk can pad their ratings yet again. BS.
Ah well. At least I can resume my raiding and get some sense of accomplishment that way now, and not get spam /rofl'd at by a mace specced MS warrior with the Vengeful Mace while doing it.
Ryan Apr 23rd 2008 7:54AM
Absolutely. I don't understand the mindset of Blizzard; they want this to be an 'e-sport', yet they continue to give a huge advantage to those who have been farming gear since the beginning of the expansion. Gear differentials of this magnitude are completely antithetical to competition. They make sense for PVE content, but none at all for PVP.
CN Apr 24th 2008 5:01AM
What's funny about them making it an 'e-sport' is that most 'good' e-sports like Halo, all players are equal, and have no major advantage outside of skill, hence the way they are making the tourney servers. There are quite a few ways still, even with the changes, to circumvent the system to 'cheat' and get ahead, not to mention teams who are already in full s3 facing formerly lower ranking teams now at 1500 when s4 starts.
What I think they should do is in Arena's, allow people to pick static gear sets to use and that way everyone is able to have full season x gear. As the person progresses, they can slowly unlock gear to use in PvE/BG's. That way there is no gear disadvantage/advantage in Arenas, and it's purely based off of skill across all Battlegroups. Then if a person wants to change to another spec, they can spend x amount of gold and change the premade gear set for that spec (IE Feral Druid to Resto.)
Just an idea. I also would like it where if a person didn't want to unlock gear they could trade the AP's in for Gold, or mounts, or other fun items. I guess they really want to push the gear thing so they can keep the circle going and keep us all hooked.
BUT - What made me laugh earlier is reading about people threatening to Sue over all of this. They really need to read the EULA and License. Blizzard Owns your toon and reserves the right to change game play and/or the right to terminate your use of their services & software at any time, since they own your character.
CN Apr 24th 2008 5:12AM
About the sueing part, I meant to say EULA & TOS, not EULA & License >.
cluffer Apr 22nd 2008 5:09PM
Another thought for you gear gap supporters.
There is no limit to the number of people able to complete an instance. Take the time, learn the encounter, run over and over again, get gear.
In arena, if you go up, someone goes down. There is finite positions at each rating.
Clearly not aplles to apples
Akkatha Apr 22nd 2008 5:03PM
Y'know what, for a second there I had a strange thought that people played PvP because they enjoyed it.
Whats with all the whining "theres no point to me playing arena now cos I cant get any more lootz"? What about for the fun of it?
WoW isnt just about loot, and I guarantee you folks moaning about these changes would have been chewed up and spat out by the old PvP system.
This is the right way to do things, things should have a personal rating. That way, you have to actually learn to be good at the game to win. Its pretty simple. Like getting past a level on tomb raider or any other arcade game.....If you cant do it you have to spend ages trying.
Jeeez....when did we as a community get so damn whiny? We have a great game, an AMAZING game, so just enjoy it!
Pzychotix Apr 22nd 2008 6:50PM
There's a difference between playing for fun, and playing to get your face smashed in. When the gear gap gets to be this huge, skill doesn't play as huge a role anymore. A warrior swinging around an S4 mace will be far more deadly than those in S2. Trust me, it makes a difference.
Satryghen Apr 22nd 2008 5:07PM
Firstly I'm against the level of restriction on the arena pieces, I'll probably be stepping out of it when S4 drops because I will have little left to get, but I had a thought as to why Blizz may be doing this.
I think it may have to do with the tuning of difficulty for Lich King. As Lich King gets closer they've been making it harder to get top level epics and I think it may be because they want to reduce the number of people that can steam-roll through the first couple of zones on launch day. If you think about it the number of people pre-BC that had tier 3 gear was fairly limited, so they didn't really have to worry about them when tuning the difficulty of Hellfire. By limiting the number of people with S4 they can tune the difficulty of the starter zones of lich king without worrying about them too much and thinking more about the average player.
I could be wrong it's just a thought.