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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlizzard: Arenas were a mistake.
by Michael Sacco 
Nov 13th 2009 at 5:50PM
He begins by saying that he wishes that the servers had been more stable at launch, and that there had been more of them, but he says that in terms of design, Arenas were the single biggest mistake in WoW's history.
Says Pardo:
Pardo indicates that most of the changes to the game since launch have been a success -- the shrinking of raid sizes, the addition of Heroic dungeons, etc -- but that Arena has been a huge headache for Blizzard and players alike. He goes on to say that if he had the choice, he'd either go back to WoW's beginnings and change the fundamentals of class balance, or, barring that, would nix the decision to add Arenas during the development of the Burning Crusade expansion.We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.
A pretty candid statement about a pretty controversial topic. It's good to see that Blizzard understands that the implementation of Arenas was a mistake for a game like WoW. Of course, Pardo also says that they can't just axe Arenas completely, at least not yet, so we may be stuck with them for a while. Sorry about your PvE burst damage, guys.
You can read the full interview with Rob at the Warcry Network. It's not all about Arena, I promise.
Filed under: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Arena, Hardware
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 9)
thinkthis Nov 13th 2009 6:12PM
I totally agree with you. My favorite memories of WoW are playing BGs for hours on end against the same highly skilled opponents over and over again. First cross realm and then Arenas destroyed the best part of this game.
talkingmike Nov 13th 2009 6:19PM
You and the other 0.01% of each server's population that actually attained GM status are the only ones that liked this grind-y method of ladder climbing.
Barring the 2s bracket, arena is the best way of ranking players against each other.
Elmo Nov 13th 2009 6:32PM
I don't think the old ranking system was good, but I did love when you had Realm PvP heroes and could fight in AV, return 2 hours later and the same fight would still be on.
I always said WoW is impossible to balance, there are so many factors which can decide a battle excluding gear and skill.
Arena is very depending on setups in the higher brackets and less about pure skill, you simply can't take 2 random dps and a healer and succeed, there are still classes who ain't viable for arena and classes who are 'FotM'
Waterloo Nov 13th 2009 7:04PM
Agree. I wouldn't disparage the Arena guys their fun *if* it hadn't ruined the BGs and caused the constant seesaw of class balance.
/sigh
Mirajj Nov 13th 2009 6:07PM
Nice to see them finally admitting this. PvP just keeps screwing up an otherwise great PvE game.
kabshiel Nov 13th 2009 6:23PM
It's not PVP that's the problem. Battlegrounds and world PVP were and are fine. It's the small scale PVP in Arenas, where class imbalances are hugely magnified and need to be constantly adjusted that's messing up the game.
vinniedcleaner Nov 13th 2009 6:30PM
I agree. The concept of PvP is good, however implementing it is another story. Here's an idea... add another talent page, so that for X amount of gold a person can buy a PvP talent sheet, with PvP oriented talents/spells to choose from. That way they can have a level playing field for all the classes in PvP without hurting the PvE players.
Tridus Nov 13th 2009 6:42PM
It's not really PvP. It's small scale detached PvP.
Wintergrasp doesn't screw up PvE balance. Alterac Valley doesn't screw up PvE balance. PvE doesn't really screw up AV balance. Those are large scale battles where one powerful ability doesn't really determine the outcome, it's more about how the team acts.
In arenas, the scale is so much smaller (2v2 especially) that anything being a little off can drastically alter outcomes. It's simply not what the game was designed for.
notmuchtosay Nov 13th 2009 7:43PM
Makes me wonder, if people really think arena should be a viable end game option, why do 2v2 and 3v3 reward anything? In my opinion, only 5v5 (5man dungeon size) and a new bracket:10v10 (small raid size) be the only means to do the arena. Surely balance would be much easier, and the arena would feel more like a claustrophobic battleground that way. Just a bit more like a pre-made battleground or something.
Hubuly Nov 13th 2009 6:06PM
Ive always hated arena after i first tried it with 2s and 3s with a couple of friends and it always perplexed me why the best pvp gear in the game is only available to arena combat
Shial Nov 13th 2009 6:13PM
I said it the very first day I heard about arenas... A minimalistic-competitive-pvp environment within a MMO game? WTF?!
Baldagrim Nov 13th 2009 6:19PM
When the arena system was made, I know something was bound to go wrong. Competition spoils the spirit of every sport. I thought the arena system would be where two players signed up to fight each other and they go at it. the reward would be a small purse, nothing more.
If you have a grievance with someone, slug it out. If you think the roll on an item was unfair, slug it out! If you just want to whale on someone digitally, slug it out!
If in raid or party, the system should announce who won the match, so the appropriate argument or item goes to the right person.
SithLlenniuq Nov 13th 2009 6:54PM
^^^^ This.
No more QQ on roll
Two toons enter
Two toons leave (One with a better piece of gear).
Make an instant arena match for when ever 2 or more people need roll on the same item. Even if you can't do the match right away, because of in the middle of raid, etc. Have it scheduled for later when both parties can settle it. Hold the item in escrow until the match is over.
But like all suggestions there will be some flaw in my thinking I am sure someone will point out.
Trajan Nov 13th 2009 6:55PM
Either I'm way too sick, or you're a true master of sarcasm, but...
...wtb duel?
Dysmorphia Nov 13th 2009 7:19PM
SithLlenniuq: Your proposal intrigues me. It would certainly help alleviate the problem of Healers getting gear over DPS. Since, as anyone can see, better gear on DPS helps the raid, but anything beyond what is just necessary on a healer is merely insurance against the raiders drinking retard juice.
The only difficulty I foresee is if the match were between two healers.
Avan Nov 13th 2009 8:00PM
Problems only arise when an easily accessible game has the potential to be competive. The problem isn't in the competitive nature of the game, it's because of the people playing the game (which is so easily accessible that it isn't even funny).
We've got casual players, hardcore players, raiders, non-raiders, PvPers, non-PvPers, arena junkies, and spam bots.
When you put a casual player and hardcore player in the same sandbox, problems arise because the casual will almost always cry foul to the hardcore player who is doing better than them. The solution? Handouts for casuals and making harder content optional.
When you put a raider in a group with a non-raider, then the non-raider cries foul when the raider is doing better than them. The solution is to handout gear and limit how much better real raid gear is.
When you've got PvPers facerolling non-PvPers in battlegrounds or Wintergrasp or whatever-the-hell have you, then non-PvPers cry foul because they don't know the rules of engagement. The solution is free PvP gear and watering down the objectives so you don't technically have to PvP to win.
When you've got arena junkies going up against arena junkies, then whoever sucks cries foul because they got knocked off their high horse by someone better. The solution? Bitch about it until whoever you lost to gets nerfed.
And then spam bots just suck.
The fix for all of this? Attunements for raiding; removal of arena for PvP, at least until PvP works with solid mechanics, as opposed to taking the fundamentals of PvE and hacking together a set of restrictions.
Baldagrim Nov 13th 2009 9:19PM
SithLlenniuq - Your idea is really nice. My idea was just having the two teleport magically to an arena, but that does put the raid/party on hold. Your idea allows the flow to continue, but it also can increase the contested players' tension. I do get frustrated sometimes in those situations.
Dysmorphia - The problem with Healers getting gear over DPS is many people prioritize healers first because they keep everyone alive and since DPS can be seen as interchangeable for every class can DPS. But as a Tank, I like having Healers with good gear, but I'd be a fool to say that they should be getting gear over DPS.
Someone once told me: Healers keep Tanks alive, Tanks keep the aggro, so DPS can get the job done.
Avan - You did a nice breakdown of everything. But there will always be jerks who cry foul every time things don't go their way. Maybe if the system had some sort of Raid Leader sign-off where the Raid Leader can make the decision for people to duel in the arena before hand. This way, these people who cry when their knees get skinned will have less chances to do so.
Smileypants Nov 14th 2009 10:37AM
"Competition spoils the spirit of every sport."
I know this isn't very WoW related; but I couldn't resist to correct this statement.
The very phenomenon of a "sport" is more often than not structered around the phenomenon of competition. While in our language the concept of sport has many different uses -- the more prominent use of the word typically involves the notion of competition. Think of ESPN's "SPORTScenter"; or think of when someone says, "I am going to a sporting event" this weekend; usually in these uses we are referring to events where one or more forces are in contest with one another -- and the notion of contest necessarily involves the notion of a victor and a loser. Now, we may use the word sport in other circumstances very similar to the meaning of game which may or may not involve competion between two or more foces. In this sense the meaning of sport or game is used to contrast events or activities that are of a more serious nature -- thinking of a game or sport as something that is done for pure fun as opposed to pure work.
So, I would argue that it is almost a complete contradiction in terms if you say that competition ruins the nature of sports when more than 90% of the time we use the term sport to talk about events that necessarily involve competition: ie. baseball, soccer, racing, poker, and yes... even video games.
Vogie Nov 13th 2009 6:21PM
I think they could save arena if they Set it Apart from WoW as a whole. Warcraft isn't the same as Defense of the Ancients which isn't the same as Demigod. Arena is a unique beast whose limitation is PvE WoW.
If they restricted normal classes to PvE and Battlegrounds, and then made WoW Arena a whole different beast, and then balance accordingly, It could be fun for all involved.
mitch Nov 13th 2009 6:24PM
They just said what everyone was thinking. Arena participation is so far down this expansion. I'd like to see a shift in focus from Arena to BGs. Arena is such small scale and it's freaking impossible to balance yet theyput so much effort into it. Not to mention how small the participation. I don't know what the rest of the player base is like but I know that my current guild (rl mates) have done maybe 20 games since Wrath came out and my raiding guild previous to this refused to Arena in the current state.
Again this evidence is a bit anecdotal but even in on general/trade channels on a high pop PVP-battlegroup server there's barely any advertising for people looking for teams like their used to be back in BC.
When you can get hit for 14k out of a 20k HP pool from one spell, PVP is not fun.