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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 3 of 3)
Earthowned Jun 3rd 2008 4:55AM
"If you decide that you're one of the many that hate arenas, then my best suggestion is to not play them."
Um, what about requiring arena ratings for battleground honor gear in s4? The point is people will be forced to play arenas. Good or Bad point? Discuss...
Razielwings Jun 3rd 2008 5:24AM
Make it into a league system. It should be easy this way to seperate those with Season 2 gear to those with Season 3.
Vepa Jun 3rd 2008 5:46AM
The best way to fix it for everyone, is to make an alternate version of every arena tier. For example, they implemented the personal rating requirement on S3 shoulders...because good arena fighters wanted to look "cooler" than the bad ones that just play for gear...but if you had a second version of the shoulders with the same stats but looked different with no requirement, then everyone could use them.
This way, the arena masters are still noticeable when hanging around Stormwind or Orgimmar, but everyone still has the potential to be good players, without lack of gear coming their way.
Like I don't see how I can progress any further being a Shockadin. My gear comes from PvP, because plate spell damage gear doesn't exist anywhere else. And putting rating requirements on every piece of gear has put me in a corner, because I'm too casual to spend the time it takes to perfect strategies with my friends that I do arenas with.
Tychon Jun 3rd 2008 8:02AM
If at anytime you lose to a full S3 team, and you are in 2/5 or 3/5 veng with the rest S1, and at the end of the match you say "oh well they had full S3" do yourself a favor and don't queue up anymore. having 1 peice difference that is a small difference at best, means your got outplayed they're better at arena than you are, they are superior to you.
I know a lot of people want to dismiss "they're not better than me, they just have better gear" 100% not the case. In my opinion getting a priest (1900 rated) and warrior (2100) rated, the difference between 1700 and 2100 wasn't gear. not 1 single loss was "man if I would have just had S3 shoulders we would have won" it was them doing the right thing at the right time, and us doing the wrong thing. strategy and team make up is 80% of the fight.
1700+ has 0 to do with gear, I helped a friend out on my priest, I don't have shoulders, but I do have weapon, pretty much what 90% of the people that arena each week should have by now, and a half greens/blue hunter, would get 3-4 shot by any decent warrior. we hit 1700 no problem my point being that if you are a skilled player and know what you are doing there is no reason you can not get shoulders and weapon as well. and basically dismiss this issue of "we loss because they have 2 more stam and 2 more resil than us"
kidsmoke Jun 3rd 2008 8:48AM
The Problem is simple. Only a few teams compete to be number one, and if you are not in BG9 then your ranks "don't matter" anyway so we all need a carrot (like the rest of wow) at the end of a stick.
If I just instantly got to start my characters at level 70 with all their spells and abilities it wouldn't be much fun, and the game would quickly lose its flavor, and then after you hit 70 you get obsessed with upgrading your character through gear.
Well it's the same way with PVP. If you keep playing for a month to buy that axe or gloves or whatever then thats more time your paying and playing.
I agree that the current running season needs to keep a PR requirement, but I believe the past seasons should have no requirement to keep the playing field as level as possible.
TRs should be done away with and only PRs should matter, and they should be made permanent per season, resetting every season.
Team match-ups should be decided by the PR of the highest rated member. ( no reason to go by average )
kidsmoke Jun 3rd 2008 9:01AM
Well Tychon I think most people who fight those teams and blame it on gear are also wondering why a brand new in blues team is even facing a full s3'd out team.
The idea (while not always true) isn't just that they have better gear it's that the gear is a representation of their ability to play arena, and thus, why are teams lower than a 1800 rating playing teams equipped, skilled, and experienced in 2000+ ratings?
That's whats not fair about arena.
You have very little ability to adapt and learn in the 1500 - 1800 range if you don't already have an experienced friend to show you the ropes. *Because, when you win in those ranges you dominate teams lower than you, and when you lose you usually get WTFPWNED so fast that you have little time to learn as to what you did wrong, and thus it becomes frustrating.
I personally felt this way as I edged toward 1800 and 1850 and then got battered back down to 1600s.
It's no fun for me to dominate unskilled or geared teams where there is NO competition, and at the same time it's no fun for me to get totally dominated by a much much better player selling, or ranking up a team while he's been sitting on teams rated 2200 plus.
So we'd get 4 domination wins for very few points, maybe one or two evenly matched teams for decent points, and then get dominated in 4 games, and most often playing against a team skilled in 2200 ratings, but playing on a team ranked in the 1500s.
How is it fair or fun to lose to a team that is much much better than you and lose MORE points because they are selling a team rank? I don't want to see a s3 mace crush my skull and lose 20 plus points because of point or rating selling.
If I go up against those teams it's acceptable to lose points equivelent to their PRs or what their PRs would be if made permanent.
Tychon Jun 3rd 2008 7:58PM
Adds to my point. If you are in full blues you obviously do not care about arena and are using the system to upgrade your pve set with arena gear. You shouldn't complain about going up against arena geared players..... in arena... its kinda like complaining about pvp on a pvp server.
in 10 matches you may see at most 1 to 2 teams that are either new team getting there rating up, or points selling team. Its not hard at this point in time to see someone in 4/5 veng with S2 shoulders, S2 weapon. If you are a brand new 70, and really want to get into arena, you should probably be sitting in BGs honor farming to get S1.
Sinthar Jun 3rd 2008 10:20AM
For me the arena is broken, perminently. I dont expect to be good - because of my class, primarily (Mage). I only do some arenas because friends want to do 10 games to get there arena points, and thats it, period. I dont begrudge the good players their S3 sets, but as i have commented on a previous article, i think there should be leagues. If you have S3 gear, you should be in league '3'. And if they want to join new teams etc, then they ALSO will be in league '3'. A gear reset is also needed (as per many comments above), as well as the seperation of arena and PVE to a greater degree (loved the seperate specs n gear idea, with good arena players able to get it in the true sense (ie in Normal PVE etc) whilst everyone getting it in arena - makes it a truely skill based system then!)
kidsmoke Jun 4th 2008 4:44PM
Regardless of what color equipment your in if only PRs mattered then you wouldn't see 2000 ranked players playing against total noobs.
I have mostly S3 with S2 shoulders and weps. I'm a decent player (like i said pushing 1850), but I feel outclassed when I play people who are vastly overskilled playing on underranked teams.
It means that while I may be a 1900 rated player or whatever I'm not able to acheive that because I'm constantly being placed up against lower ranked teams with higher skilled players.
I can win 8 matches a week and win only 50 points, and then lose (commonly) against a lower ranked team twice for 40 points, and (dun dun dun) they just happen to be in full S3 or BT gear.
I personally find it frustrating to be winning the majority of games I play a week (use to be around 20-30 games played with about 20 wins and 10 loses), and find myself BARELY moving up rank.
maarick Jun 4th 2008 5:56PM
i dont understand this whole "everyone in arena matches should have the same gear and not be allowed to use it outside of arena"
we play this game to customize your character to be as dominate as he can possibly be. and we do whatever it is we have to do to get the absolute best gear you can, whether its arena or grind BT or the new Sunwell or whatever.
the game you guys are describing with equal gear (changing my guy who i worked years on) for arena use only, doesnt sound appealing at all. why would i go in there then? to play with my guy with this "specail gear" and "special spec" that i cant use anywhere else? i ask again why am i in there? to not get good gear for my guy? I build my guy so i can walk in there as-is and decimate all. and then walk out and go into the wolrd and slaughter all horde with my Arena gear that i worked so hard for!!
arena will die with those changes cause noone will care about it at all
why the hell would i put myself thru this torture every week if i cant get the gear?
the only reason majority of the people who do arena is to get the dominate gear so they can go everywhere in the world and dominate everyone with the arena gear.
why else would anyone do it?
this whole game is about gear, its always been about gear, for me at least, and i dont/wouldnt spend any of my time doing anything unless it is to get gear to make my guy better, isnt that why were here?
Sylvyr Jun 10th 2008 5:26PM
yea..the new systems is total Bullshit. I start at 1500, and low and behold..my opponenets are decked out in mostly s2/s3 with s3 wpn. Yeah. Tahts really fair. C'mon blizz and get ur heads out of your asses, ur arenas are broken and it shouldn't have taken u this long to fix it. How does this make the person who has just dinged 70 feel when they wanna try arenas for a change after grinding their asses off? I'm sure the situation will spoil their appetite as it has definately spoiiled mine.
Troutbum Jun 11th 2008 12:52PM
What many of you aren't considering is the player pool at the time of your matches. You can only go up against teams that are in the queue. Blizzard can't magically summon equally geared teams for you to play if they aren't in the queue. Therefore, if there are only six teams interested in playing at the time you queue and five of them are in S3, it's likely you're going to get your hat handed to you if you're on a 1500 ranked/geared team...
Caesar Jul 4th 2008 1:47PM
The idea of leagues is a good idea. A good model could be the English Premier league in soccer. Lets say you are above 2000 in Season 3, then you get bumped up to the Premier league. Everyone in the Premier league can buy the Season 4 gear immediately. Everyone would have the exact same gear at the start of the season.
At the end of season four, some teams from the AAA leage (1800-1999 ranking) would move up to the Premier league and some from the Premier league would move down.
In Season five, The Premiers league gets the season 5 gear, the AAA league gets the season 4 gear, the AA leage gets the season 3 gear, etc.
At the launch of the expansion, you have a 1-2 month pre season where everyone fights everyone using whatever gear you can craft or get from raids/quests/heroics/BGs.
Another way to distribute loot would be a class ladder. If things are unbalanced (and they always will be), and every team has a rogue, then make the rogues compete with other rogues. Only the top X get shoulders. That would mean a very small percentages of rogues, but a high percentage of paladins. If you want to have a better chance of getting gear, play a class which isn't as well represented.