Blood Sport: Yup, still broken
by Amanda Dean 
Jun 2nd 2008 at 1:00PM
PvP in its purest form is a beautiful thing. Amanda Dean, always obsessed with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat brings you news you can use in the Arena.
The World (of Warcraft) seems to be full of arena lovers and arena haters. I suppose somewhere out there you might find some folks that are completely indifferent to the arena. The recent changes to the Personal Rating system seems to have brought out a furor in both camps. Suince the dawn of the Burning Crusade Blizzard has made many attempts to balance the arenas, now I find that the arenas are still broken, just broken differently.
In a sarcastically titled thread "New PR system is cool" Camelvendor of Korgath explained his situation. He played on his 2200 rated team with his old partner, who obviously had a lower rating for 33 games. Boasting a record of 29 wins and 4 losses for the day, the end result was a rating change of 56 points lost. Since the team rating was considerably higher than one of the personal ratings on the team, they found themselves playing in the 1500 bracket.
That has also proven frustrating from the opposite side of the pairings. While Camelvendor stewed about fighting teams wearing Season Two gear, Limez expressed his disgust with playing Season Three Geared teams. Starting out with a rating in the high 1700s he ended the day in the mid-1600s. He feels that his team had no chance against those with superior gear (though I might add that they also most likely had superior skill).
My recent experience has been similar to this. We've recently created a 5v5 team including a Mortal Strike Warrior, a Retribution Paladin, a Discipline Priest, an Enhancement Shaman, and me, a Resto Shaman. It's not a cookie cutter composition, but it's what we can come up with among friends.
Our team is still learning to play together and have been winning about half of our games. Our arena points have been climbing, however because when we win we win 15-25 points and when we lose we lose 5-10 points. We can more or less shrug it off when we find ourselves defeated by fully geared season three teams.
Blizzard has cracked down on win-trading and traditional point selling but problems with arena still exist. It looks like ratings are still exploitable, just in a different way. The new gig is for geared players to just create a new team with their lower ranked friends. That way they're playing teams of equivalent rating and pushing them up. I personally have accepted that the system has always been broken. I keep queuing up because I genuinely enjoy the challenge.
I can understand the frustration that many players have with the arena system. It can be hard for new players to break into the arena as a new level 70. While skill is the ultimate factor in success, gear can not be counted out completely. The better the gear, the easier it is to rank up, and the higher the rating, the easier it is to get gear. Blizzard has made many changes in attempt to fix the problem of imbalanced arenas, but people will always find creative ways to work the system.
All I can say is hang in there and play hard. Just like raiding, you don't become a top-tier player overnight. Study up on game play and master your tools. For your first couple of months, you may have to simply play your ten weekly games to get points, but eventually you'll need to play more games. If you decide that you're one of the many that hate arenas, then my best suggestion is to not play them.
Aside from abolishing the arenas, altogether, I don't see how it will ever be fully balanced. Some have suggested simply not allowing gear that requires personal ratings in games against lower-rated teams, but it seems to me that something like that would only make it more difficult to break into the top ranks, as players would never drop out. I'm curious, if you were in charge of developing PvP in WoW, what would you do differently?
Rumors are out that we will be seeing the two-week notice for season four this week. Although the new arena gear is hideously ugly, I'm looking forward to some new loot. I am not looking forward to hearing the inevitable whining about being beaten by season four teams.
If you're not already saving honor and arena points for the new season, start soon. Gear up and get in there.
Filed under: Tricks, Blizzard, Forums, Blood Sport (Arena PvP), Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kryptich Jun 2nd 2008 1:14PM
I can't fathom why Personal Rating resets when you join a new team. By definition, its PERSONAL, and has nothing to do with the team your playing on. Why on Earth would you want a player who is know to be very skilled (i.e. 2000+ PR) to end up playing against 1500 rated players just because he switched teams.
It honestly sounds to me like someone at Blizzard came up with PR, and then somebody else who didn't understand the concept was assigned the task of fixing arena exploits, and this is the result.
Some blue post a while back claimed that this system "encourages" teams to play with and against members of equivilent PR. Yeah, um ... we dont choose who we play against, regardles of how "encouraged we are". Beleive me, I want to play against people of equal PR I really do ... doesnt always happen. And my punishment for Queing and playing Arenas as intended? I play every game on my team, my TR shoots to 2K and my PR is stuck at 1850. I'm literally on the verge of not getting my own Team points on a team that I've played every game.
Its an oversight ... just fix it. So simple ... get rid of Team Ratings altogether. Your TR in any game you play is an average of the PR of all players in the group at time of Queue. Your PR is permanent. Perdiod, done, no exploits, no issues.
Lab Monkey Jun 2nd 2008 1:24PM
"Its an oversight ... just fix it. So simple ... get rid of Team Ratings altogether. Your TR in any game you play is an average of the PR of all players in the group at time of Queue. Your PR is permanent. Perdiod, done, no exploits, no issues."
/clap
Heilig Jun 2nd 2008 1:41PM
/signed
I've been saying this all along. Team ratings mean nothing, only personal ratings, and personal rating should be permanent and never tied to any team.
Boom Jun 2nd 2008 5:11PM
I can't help but wonder if Blizz has discussed this internally or not. The problem is, then you're running a free-for-all in standings, instead of encouraging folks to learn to work together, and rewarding you for doing so.
PvE does just that. It requires you to work as a team, and if someone sucks, you all pay for it. I can only assume this thought process is behind the "team" style ratings of the Arena.
Boom
Angus Jun 2nd 2008 5:39PM
Currently the easy way of dealing with things is get your PR to a nice high mark in a bracket where your class works well.
Stay in that bracket and suck up points and gear. When you have the most important items (everything requiring a rating) then you abandon that team and join a new team with people that have paid you to get their rating up. Now you are at 1500 PR and wearing S3.
Suddenly the people that paid you gold for S3 gear have no issues getting that gear and you get to farm people starting out or unable to get their skills together.
Yea, looks like a much better system to me.
Arena has so many holes in it that even the patch job has holes.
Crypton Jun 2nd 2008 1:20PM
Bilzzard should just equilize arena gear discrepency by giving everyone the current season gear when arena matches start. And point will allow them to buy the same gear for outside of the arena. Having the same gear will make it closer to a true esport. No more headaches
jbodar Jun 2nd 2008 4:22PM
This makes large amounts of sense.
Boom Jun 2nd 2008 4:52PM
Wow... not a terrible idea. What, keep trinkets unique based on whatever you choose to bring in, but the rest is all based on your spec (or maybe you choose an "Arena Suit" before you go in). Same gear, enchants, gems, etc.
I dig this. Alot. No more complaining about gear. It's all about skill at that point, and the reward... you get to bring that insane gear into the Battleground, use it on your dailies, take it raiding or simply show off in town.
I love it.
Boom
Kieran Jul 4th 2008 6:19AM
Or, similarly, make S3/S4 gear cheap or free, and require high ratings only to use it outside of the arena.
Solander Jun 2nd 2008 1:18PM
I can agree that the system is still fairly broken. Last night I made a 3v3 team with a friend of mine and his holy pally guildie. Running Feral Druid / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin.
One team that we hit last night was in full s3 including shoulders, somehow we managed to coordinate cc on their healer long enough to knock out a win, we took them down 24 points. Then we played them again and they beat us for an 8 point gain. While we shouldn't have ever fought them I can see that Blizzard is doing what they can to try and maintain an actual challenging pvp experience. Cracking down on win-trading and point-selling was a necessary step.
As were the new personal ratings for season 4.
However no one gets good or geared immediately, and this is something people need to realize. When I started off s1 I was in blues and greens, in s2 I remember celebrating my dps upgrade of earthwarden, and in s3 I've been pushing the ratings (peaked at 1842 in 2s) I can say though without a doubt that arenas are fun, and they have made me a better player. I extensively use hotkeys, macros, and I no longer click my spells :D
For new people jumping into arenas, the blue vendor set is a decent start, s1 is available for honor (soon to be season 2) and you can still play a few games a week for some points for gear from the latest season!
- Sol
Terrant Jun 2nd 2008 1:21PM
I would make the only rewards for high-end arena performance mounts, titles, and other things that don't directly affect game statistics. The best PvP gear should be easily obtainable through BGs. That way, arena becomes more about skill, team synergy of specs, and fun, but there's still some flashy rewards for being good at it.
Bunkai Jun 2nd 2008 1:31PM
Enter the arenas = everyone in the same set of gear.
Skillz > Lootz
That's how arenas should be.
The sad thing is... BLIZZARD ALREADY KNOWS THIS!!!! Why else would things work the way they do on the tournament realms?
If they really wanted to do things right, they would make arena gear for arena play only, and give each character that hits 70 an arena character sheet for their arena set and their arena talent build. When you enter the arena, your arena gear/build is used. When you exit the arena, you return to your normal PvE/PvP(honor) gear set that you had on at the time that you entered the arenas. It's kind of an ItemRack or Outfitter mod on steroids.
Draugir Jun 2nd 2008 1:32PM
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j90/d2gunner86/edited.jpg
Solander Jun 2nd 2008 1:40PM
I'm not going to lie, this has happened to me as well. And I don't know why. A few weeks ago my partner and I hopped back onto our team so we had to work our personal rating back up. After over a hundred games it had equalized to the team rating. Then the following week, our personals had dropped about 8 points from the team rating inexplicably. I sent in a gm ticket and the e-mail response I received detailed the method of gaining arena points. I wish they actually read the tickets half the time.
Dukenukemx Jun 2nd 2008 1:37PM
The classes that suffer right now are Shamans, Paladins, Mages, and Hunters. Each of these classes have their own idea of what would fix PvP for them.
Lately Rogues have been climbing fast in Arena. No Arena team is complete without a Rogue. Their survivability is absurd. Paladins were known for their survivability and now Rogues beat them at it.
Seriously Kalgan should just be fired. He's screwed up class balance throughout TBC and he's had a year to fix it.
ivan256 Jun 2nd 2008 2:26PM
Some people seem to like the system the way it is/was... So just make it so the PvP gear can only be used in arenas/battlegrounds and you've achieved what abolishing arenas would have without pissing off the people who like to play in them.
Danath Jun 2nd 2008 2:04PM
I quit my 1900 arena team because Arena's are boring and I was only doing it for the weapons... and S4 is just so bland and hideous that I decided not to bother, maybe ill just pick up some rest ogear for an offset with all the points im sitting on.
Personal ratings just break everything, gear is not the reward for pvp, being better than your fellow man/woman is the reward for pvp, limiting the access to gear for people with lower ranks is simply punishing people who dont want to go cookie cutter in the first place.
Tridus Jun 2nd 2008 2:11PM
"While skill is the ultimate factor in success, gear can not be counted out completely"
Okay. I'll take a fresh 70 in the blue PvP gear. You take a 70 in S3. Play them with exactly identical skill.
One of them will consistently destroy the other one. If skill was actually the main factor, we'd each win 50% of the time.
Gear and class imbalance is what rules arenas. Skill only comes into play when the other factors are removed.
Danath Jun 2nd 2008 2:19PM
I saw a shaman in S3 die to 69 warlock thanks to the wonders of amp curse + exhaustion + dots and fleeing while just spamming CoE to keep it up. Fun fact, a warlock will outrun ghost wolf with CoEx up, thus negating the ability to chase OR run away, and it has longer range than frost shock.
An embaressing day, skill means little in the game, its all about how well you can control your opponents, which is exactly why so many people call rogues, frost mages, and locks OP, because they have ridiculous amounts of control over their fights, while classes like priest, shaman, and warriors have very little... although a warrior compensates with high armor and high damage thanks to the rage feedback mechanic.
Shaman in arena is a one trick pony, they are there for heroism, yeah they can throw lightening bolts and melee stuff, but they are really there for heroism so our team, whether melee burn or 2346 can simply insta gib an opponent.
nav Jun 3rd 2008 5:12AM
You said 'Play them with exactly identical skill.' then proceed to say
'One of them will consistently destroy the other one. If skill was actually the main factor, we'd each win 50% of the time.'
which is obviously rubbish as skill can be the main factor and you've eliminated it already as a deciding factor in this case.
'Gear and class imbalance is what rules arenas. Skill only comes into play when the other factors are removed.'
This is crazy. You eliminate skill as a factor, say that gear+class must be the deciding factor as they're the only ones left, then use this as an argument that skill is a lesser factor? Worst argued comment ever.