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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 2 of 3)
Angry Joe Jun 2nd 2008 2:13PM
"we win we win"
You lose.
Znodis Jun 2nd 2008 2:21PM
Something to consider is that for anyone to increase their rating someone needs to go down. Prior to the last patch, I was one in the latter group. I didn't care if my rating went down because at the end of the week, I still got my points and eventually my epics. Now there's very little reason for me to play. What casual is going to get beat over and over so he can get gloves?
I realize that weapons, chests, leggings, and shoulders are status symbols but that's the point. I can put in X weeks of work and get a status symbol just by putting in my time. How is that different from a rep grind? With the new system coming in, the set of losers who don't mind losing are going to leave. You're going to be left with good but not great players that will never get ahead, who will then leave, and eventually be left with only the hardest of the hardcore that will then no longer be able to get ahead and then arenas will die. That is, if bliz lets it go that long.
Personally, I think this is an experiment, which will probably be reversed to give at least one of the status items back to 'does not needing a rating.' They need the casuals in there to lose every week so the better players can get ahead.
And for those arena welfare haters - it took me 5 weeks to get the 1000 points for my axe. I looked at it like a very long daily quest, but I could only do it once a week. I got exalted with the netherwing in less time, and got an item I wanted more than an axe. I actually think the 3000 points for the main weapons is too much since that would be 3-4 months. Think of how many exalted grinds could be done in that amount of time.
Evean Jun 2nd 2008 3:04PM
IMO, the system fixes are great and will ehlp alot, but the damage has already been done. When me and my warrior partner go into an arena with our 1550 rated team and face a team of full S3 geared teams, I see it as the damage already being done.
Quickshiv Jun 2nd 2008 3:11PM
What is really bothering my friends and I is that we started playing this game late. We hit 70 about midway through s3. We didn't even try arena until about 2 months ago. So we are fighting fully geared s3 people with our honored s1 and couple pieces of s3 we have managed to get. We were looking forward to s4 because we thought it would be a gear reset for us. We could get all our s3 gear quick and start working toward s4 but since the ratings are staying on the weapons we are going to have a hell of a time getting 1800 with s1/s2 weapons. Basically we are getting punished because we didn't cheat and buy points but all the people that did get to keep their reward. They need to remove the rating requirements for s3 so new 70s have a chance.
Boom Jun 2nd 2008 5:09PM
Are you seriously trying to sell us this garbage? When S4 starts (never) you'll be able to pick up an S2 weapon for a small stack of honor.
What exactly about the S2 weapon is holding your team back, due to your inability to qualify for S3?
Lets look at the caster mace... is the 22 spell damage holding you guys back in rankings? Maybe the 2 spell hit. Or maybe it's the 2 int that keeps you guys from succeeding.
Your argument is a waste of our time. The difference between the seasons is so insanely small, you will eventually have to admit that you didn't lose to another team because they had a few more stats.
Arena fights are HARD. They are insanely complex. This means that players who dedicate their time to mastering the complexities of Arena play, WILL be significantly better than you, and you will lose, even if you wore the same gear.
The only separate the PR requirements act as, is one of "social status" or looks.
Put in your time in the BGs. Get your trinket, rings, neck, boots, belt and bracers. Each is required. Then grab S1 (or S2 next season) and spend the cash to enchant every dang thing you can, and put the best gems in you can afford. I bet you'll be shocked by how close your stats resemble those of the top Arena teams.
Quit complaining about the PR requirements. They're there for a good reason... so you can't have them. :)
Boom
Quickshiv Jun 2nd 2008 5:26PM
Wow that was a little overly hostile wasn't it. You probably shouldn't assume the guy named quickSHIV complaining about weapons is a caster. I play a rogue. It isn't so much the difference between s2 and s3 its the difference between s2 and s4 that we will be facing now. It is also going to be incredibly hard to hit 1800 in s4 compared to s3. You aren't going to have 100s of new teams starting every week to loose. Since this is a 0 sum ranking system there will be less points in the system so points will be harder to come by. I don't see why removing the requirements from s3 would be such a big deal.
Freehugz Jun 2nd 2008 7:37PM
Boom has blatantly never played a healer ... or on an outlast comp... or in a mirror match. Marginal stat advantages matter!
P1_P2 Jun 2nd 2008 10:11PM
To Boom:
It seems the upgrades from S2 items to S3 is quite small: about 20 Spell damage on each piece. But consider each player have about 8-10 items slots, the total difference was HUGE. Especially in 5v5 fightings, the total gear difference of 5 people is considerbable important.
20 spell damage or 5 Int seems useless at first grace, but compare the item level in equal PVE raids,it means a different form end- game gears to beginner-raid gears. The caster weapon from High King Maugar is just "20 spell damage and 1% spell hit" less than the one from Archmonide.
nav Jun 3rd 2008 5:19AM
P1_P2 has a point, but it's balanced by the fact that relatively few items have the rating requirement Quickshiv is complaining about.
T Jun 2nd 2008 3:18PM
The Arena PvP system can be fixed in WotLK by resetting the entire arena experience. The arena PvP system will need a breather anyway since everyone will take a little while to level to 80.
At that point, change the rules on the system...give everyone equivalent gear as Bunkai suggested. Two versions of your character would exist: the PvE version and the PvP (or Arena) version. Then the Arena system really will be about skill and not gear. Until then, skill is an afterthought, at best.
Iri Jun 2nd 2008 3:29PM
You are seeing some full s3 teams in the 1700 and 1600 brackets for 2 different reasons:
1) The win-traders ratings are dropping, because they don't want to get caught win-trading and get banned. So they do legit matches, and lose most of them (losing massive points), but win the occasional match and still get 1600 and 1700 3v3 or 5v5 ratings that they couldn't achieve by winning.
2) There are many reasons why someone would create a brand new team. Of course, one reason is that you're sick of your old team owned by someone else, but you could also be joining a RL friend's team, or get back in team with an old partner.
I've done all 3 personally, and I've been full s3 for a while, so I feel kinda bad for fighting at those brackets, but you can't be expected to create a new team and immediately get a high rating, because it would be too easy to abuse this system to "freeze" your rating (and thus title and point gains) throughout the season.
3) Some people are trying new group compositions that don't work, and their rating will drop 2-300 points before they decide this really isn't going to work.
Reason #1 is going to eventually go away, as these win-trader teams keep dropping to lower levels, and they will eventually dissolve once they barely gain any points per week at all, so don't be so quick to reach conclusions. When blizz announced the PR changes, I already knew it would take a good 3-4 weeks at least to see the win-trader teams drop off the radar and that's exactly what's happening. By the time season 4 starts, things might still be broken but it will be significantly less broken than s3 has been since day 1.
Nati Jun 2nd 2008 4:02PM
Or they could make arenas be the secondary focus of WoW pvp, a complement to battlegrounds and world PvP that the focus SHOULD be on - in my opinion at least.
Quickshiv Jun 2nd 2008 5:01PM
I would go to the extreme of removing bgs altogether if I had my choice but that would only work on world pvp servers. Also remove arena gear and make it honor gear. Arena rewards would be something else. Mounts/titles or some kind of buff that made you look different without giving you special gear.
jbodar Jun 2nd 2008 8:15PM
I still prefer Crypton's idea that Arena matches should be fought like on the Tourney server -- with standardized gear. Points earned from Arena ratings would let you purchase the current Season gear to use outside of Arenas (BGs, World PvP, etc.) There, no more gear discrepancies, it's all about skill & comp. People who suck at Arena will still get beat by the pros, but good players can fairly rise to the top.
Schadow Jun 2nd 2008 10:01PM
And what exactly be the point of arena? You trade in your points for gear that you can't use in the arena? I guess it would make you more uber in BGs, but again for what - to earn points that buy you gear that is worse than the gear you bought with arena points (but can't use in the arena)?
Makes absolutely no sense.
dean.speedway Jun 2nd 2008 6:31PM
the downside of a permanant PR is that for a lot of people that rating would be stuck around the 900-1000 mark with no hope of improving it back to the start (1500).
mbenitez1992 Jun 2nd 2008 7:15PM
Oh I remember an occasion when my mid 1600's 5v5 fought a team of all s2 gladiators... four times in a row.
I mean, we only lost 1 to 2 points per game so it wasn't so bad, it was just that our personal ratings were affected normally so we'd have a team rating of around 1600 and personal ratings of around 1550. :'(
uncaringbear Jun 2nd 2008 7:28PM
"Aside from abolishing the arenas, altogether, I don't see how it will ever be fully balanced."
That would solve everything, and is probably the most sensible thing written on this site in ages.
Nevik Jun 3rd 2008 4:03AM
In order to stop the abuse (win trading, point selling, rating manipulation, etc.) you need equipment parity and stability of teams. Blizzard already knows this is the answer since that is what they have on the Arena Tournament realms. As far as I know people don't complain about abuse on the tourney realms.
Bliz has stated they don't intend to create arena only realms and I agree. People enjoy using arena as a means of getting great equipment they can show off in-game and use in raids, instances and battlegrounds. Here's what I would do:
1. To create equipment parity: At the time of the creation of an arena team, each member is allowed to choose the equipment they intend to use in the arena. Their choice of equipment would be decided upon by Bliz in a manner similar to what they do in the tournament realm. When a player enters the arena, this gear is auto-equipped. After the match they are back in their regular gear.
2. To create team stability: Create a team transfer cooldown. If a player drops from a team then they must wait two weeks (at least!) before they are allowed to join another team from the same bracket they dropped.
Now you just rate teams and award arena points as normal.
Nevik Jun 3rd 2008 4:15AM
I apologize for repeating what has already been said. I read Amanda's post and went straight down to writing my idea, only later reading the previous comments. Sorry folks.