Arenas to be reset
by Zach Yonzon 
Jan 23rd 2009 at 2:40AM
Along with the many bugs of Patch 3.0.8 was the undocumented new Arena matching and rating system which, similar to the Wintergrasp brouhaha, created disastrous results. Many teams skyrocketed to 2200 ratings, with wins garnering up to 30 points and losses resulting in... nothing. As you can imagine, this newfangled system which Blizzard didn't bother to tell anyone about until after the fact sort of trivialized Arena Achievements such as The Arena Master. Bornakk reveals in that post that the new system may exhibit "some odd behavior" but expects that things should "straighten out fairly quickly."I'm sure that Blizzard didn't intend odd behavior to mean teams skyrocketing to 2k ratings with ease, with none of the risk involved in competitive ladder play. Straightening out also ended up as being the complete disabling of the whole system while Blizzard investigates "current rating calculation discrepancies." However, Zarhym posted earlier today on the forums that Blizzard will be bringing Arenas back up and all ratings rolled back to pre-weekly maintenance status. All items (and Achievements) gained "illegitimately" will be removed, Arena points refunded, and all gems and enchanting materials returned. As far as that 50 Gold tip you gave to enchant your gear is concerned, however, you're out of luck.
Filed under: Bugs, News items, PvP, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Plastic Rat Jan 23rd 2009 2:51AM
So... any chance they might just LEAVE them disabled? /hope
Balius Jan 23rd 2009 3:07AM
I doubt there'd be so much Arena hate if they'd balance Arena and PVE separately. Just give arenas their own fair and balanced setup, and balance PVE classes for PVE.
But if Arena balance is going to impact PVE anyway, I'd rather the arena came up so the players who want to do arenas can play the game they want to play.
my2cents Jan 23rd 2009 3:28AM
I hear this "balance PvE and PvP separately" argument all the time, but I have yet to hear an explanation of what exactly that means or how that would be done. Not trying to say it's a bad idea or can't be done, but I just personally haven't heard any solid ideas other than what's already been implemented (i.e. resil and cc which is almost exclusively a pvp thing now....)
I suppose they could do what warhammer does with certain abilities and have them affect mobs differently than players. For example in WAR there are several knocback effects that players have when used against other players (think Shaman's T-Storm), but the knockback effects are changed to 2 sec knockdown/stun effects when used against mobs.
I personally think a lot of immersion is lost when every other tooltip says "does ___ against players and ___ against monsters," but it works well on a practical level.
Plastic Rat Jan 23rd 2009 3:38AM
Yeah, if Arenas weren't such a factor in balancing PvE abilities, I'd really have little to no issue with them.
Given a choice, I'm much rather have the richness and depth of PvE over a bunch of e-peen waving console kiddies beating each other up in a shoebox.
As for balancing it, WAR managed it. Guild Wars managed it. The only real way around it is to have two systems for PvP and PvE.
For example taunts in WAR force a mob to attack the player, but in PvP they apply a debuff that means the target deals 30% less damage to any target other than the person who taunted them. Thus making the taunter a more desirable target.
I play on an Rp server and I'd have to say tooltips that distinguish between players and monsters would be the least immersion breaking thing for me considering the wealth of immersion breaking stuff to choose from already.
Balius Jan 23rd 2009 3:41AM
I didn't offer a suggestion because there are a few ways to accomplish it. Either change spells and talents to work differently in PVE vs PVP(a dual tooltip), create a cookie cutter arena talent tree and skill list that will be used in Arenas and has no relationship to the rest of the game at all, give each player an avatar (like the chess event in Kara) or a Vehicle (like the shredder in Dragonblight) with skills representing the character's class but balanced toward Arena, remove arena altogether from WoW and offer pure arena as a standalone product played via battlenet (eliminating the matchmaking per server issues) or do any number of things I can't think of in six minutes off the top of my head.
There are options.
Matazuma Jan 23rd 2009 3:42AM
PvE is welfare epics.
AyaJulia Jan 23rd 2009 3:45AM
@my2cents: Another method of "balancing PvP and PvE separately" can be found in Guild Wars, for example. When you zone into a PvP area, your skills actually change. Imagine, as a very basic example, having two copies of Polymorph:
Just plain "Polymorph" would be intact as we know it today: "Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to 50 sec."
When you went into an arena or BG, you would lose "Polymorph" and it would automatically switch to "Polymorph (PvP)" with the tooltip pointing out the 10sec duration with diminishing returns.
The only problem is that a solution like this would get complicated with regard to world PvP. :\
Malkeior Jan 23rd 2009 6:21AM
@Plastic Rat
Those games were designed with PvP balance in the foreground with their PvE balanced around it, that said, there's a reason why they're PvE is lackluster.
Arena is here to stay and MOST people are alright with it, deal with it.
Jhestor Jan 23rd 2009 7:09AM
@Malkeior
I agree that the majority are fine with arenas, but only in that a majority represents over 50%. I hope you aren't inferring that Plastic Rat is in the 5% minority.
I recently had a very long and involved discussion about the state of PvP vs PvE in the game right now with my guild, and I can tell you that every single member agreed that the balance will never be right. Either arena-minded changes will meddle with PVE gaming, or PvE buffs/nerfs will seriously alter the PvP balance.
It's just an impossible thing to do, in my opinion. Having played a warlock, paladin, and druid in arenas I can say definitively that all classes were NOT created equal; the disparity in some classes ability to do massive burst damage (currently) just rules some classes out of the highest brackets, period.
And it sucks :(
roachkilla Jan 23rd 2009 8:28AM
I dont care about arenas let us play!
Anton Jan 23rd 2009 3:05AM
And Blizztards fail again at PvP! :D
wiglet Jan 23rd 2009 3:07AM
Aqua FTW! Love it.
krizzlybear Jan 23rd 2009 3:48AM
Dr. Jones, Jones, calling Doctor Jones
Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones get up now (wake up now!)
Etheria Jan 23rd 2009 6:17AM
Euro pop, in the arena? I hope blizz are taking notes.
Acutaly, on that note, when can we have the over-the-top Stormwind theme changed to 'The Beer Song'?
Taladan Jan 23rd 2009 6:33AM
"but expects that things should "straighten out fairly quickly.""
Sure, fairly quickly. How long Arenas are disabled? Two days already?
Amaxe Jan 23rd 2009 7:50AM
Could be worse... could be down for two weeks.
Oh wait, I'm sorry. I meant "could be better." ;-)
Araan Jan 23rd 2009 6:51AM
things change in the game all the time. and the changes pvp balancing brought to pve are what ? less damage on an already too soft boss ? a change in skills and talents of the characters (which come all the time either because of pvp or pve balancing) which forces people to change their strategies ? i do both and i like the way at least some aspects of the game change now and then. else we´d be doing the same stuff for all time. and by the way. it´s a game. don´t forget that. if you´re not having fun playing it i doubt it´s a good idea to do so
Paul D Jan 23rd 2009 8:07AM
The issue isn't simply tweaking the classes, Araan. The issue is that all the classes have been based on different conceptual roles with completely different play styles both to make the classes meaningful representations of fantasy archtypes (priests, warriors, etc.) and to provide a deep, rich, tactical game for the complex quests, dungeons, and bosses Blizzard has designed.
That depth disappears in the arena, in which abilities that make a class indispensable in a dungeon become useless against abilities that simply mete out rapid damage. The easiest, and least satisfying, way to fix this is to get rid of all the tactical depth and make every class nearly identity in overall abilities — something most of us would abhor.
BlizzardFails Jan 23rd 2009 9:31AM
ROFL, anyone else find it funny how blizzard will take down the servers for 4 hours to fix something less then 1% of wow population uses? Awesome job blizzard! Couldn't wait till mondays reset to fix this huh?
Wyldshank Jan 23rd 2009 8:19AM
I know right, lets inconvenience the majority for the wants of a few. The spec I play (prot Pally) will never have any real viability in arena's so this is complete B.S. in my opinion. I don't mind arena's or arena players until their fun gets in the way of my fun. The majority should never be subjected to the will of the minority. This could have easily waited until the normal Tuesday maintenance.