Breakfast Topic: Do you like PvP?
by Olivia Grace 
Apr 3rd 2012 at 8:00AM
I wrote a Breakfast Topic recently about what you're just not that excited about in Mists, and as ever, I religiously read all the comments. While a lot of the expected stuff came up, one thing that really sprang out at me was just how many people mentioned that they really don't like PvP -- even hate it, in some cases!
As the PvP columnist here at WoW Insider, I am really quite keen on PvP! And one thing I'm really hoping to do with my columns is to get people into PvP, get people enjoying it and so on. I personally think that once you understand a few basic things about PvP, you're far more likely to enjoy it, but maybe I'm wrong.
I can think of various reasons you might not like it. I wasn't super-keen when I first started WoW. I didn't understand what resilience was. I didn't understand Battleground brackets. I didn't understand the importance of CC. I didn't know about gear. If someone duelled me, I declined. But that changed!
So I'd love to hear, first, whether you're a fan of PvP or not -- and most important, the reasons for your opinion. If you could have some advice that might prompt you to start PvPing, what would it be? As Dr. Cox says in Scrubs, "Help me to help you!"
As the PvP columnist here at WoW Insider, I am really quite keen on PvP! And one thing I'm really hoping to do with my columns is to get people into PvP, get people enjoying it and so on. I personally think that once you understand a few basic things about PvP, you're far more likely to enjoy it, but maybe I'm wrong.
I can think of various reasons you might not like it. I wasn't super-keen when I first started WoW. I didn't understand what resilience was. I didn't understand Battleground brackets. I didn't understand the importance of CC. I didn't know about gear. If someone duelled me, I declined. But that changed!
So I'd love to hear, first, whether you're a fan of PvP or not -- and most important, the reasons for your opinion. If you could have some advice that might prompt you to start PvPing, what would it be? As Dr. Cox says in Scrubs, "Help me to help you!"
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
joseph.peterc Apr 3rd 2012 8:03AM
No I hate pvp. There's no dragons to kill.
Nick Apr 3rd 2012 8:05AM
its a means to an end for me. My hunter is now decked out in 390 gear, is capable of being in the top half of DPS meters in LFR and I can now start to "upgrade" to 384 gear.
I did collect a full 390 set for my resto druid, I did WANT to try arena, but no one in my guild did so I put that on the back burner. Maybe in MoP.
Pam Apr 3rd 2012 9:11AM
I am so fussified about Resto Druids this xpac. I spend more time CC'ing than healing, and heaven forbid if I have a rogue and a warrior on me.
It def looks promising in MoP tho.
AltairAntares Apr 3rd 2012 11:43AM
I don't know about your server, but on mine there's always people who are just looking to play a couple games to finish hitting their conquest cap for the week. Try looking for those people. It's low stress, you get an idea of what arena is like, and if you lose horribly, no one cares.
Jay Apr 3rd 2012 8:05AM
I enjoy large scale pvp, nowadays the large battlegrounds, before WotLK I was on a very active wpvp realm, that was all I did in wow more or less. Just running a few bgs and arenas to get gear. When WotLK was realesed it was like it had gone away over night, I don't acctually know what happend all of a sudden our wpvp realm had become pve oriented.
Miss those days sometimes. Still enjoy the game immensly though.
Den Apr 4th 2012 2:54PM
This is WoW (and themepark MMOs) all over. Rift was doing well for awhile with the world pvp dailies, but it only lasted so long. If you want world pvp in the long run, you're gonna need a sandbox/park game.
razion Apr 3rd 2012 8:07AM
Admittedly, I don't PvP as much as I used to, but that doesn't stop me from loving it all the same. What I'm sure anyone who's PvP'd can attest to, is that the best part about doing it is the rush. The adrenaline you get from those 1% victories, winning from the skin of your teeth. Fights that last over half an hour only to finally come to a climactic conclusion in the brief of a short window. It's those moments where everything is riding on a few actions, and everything slows down. You see everything for what it really is and in those moments you feel empowered. This is why I PvP - and I hope I don't sound like I'm over-glorifying it, because I'm being as straight-forward as I can be when I say the rush is what makes and breaks a PvP session. Of course I'd be lying if I said it wasn't also the people and the community. I love theory-crafting scenarios and making the best out of my character and my team compositions. I love achieving close victories and I like feeling like I can always get better. Like there's always someone better for me to try and conquer.
For those starting PvP, the best advice I can give is find people who are as excited about it as you are. Dig in and have fun with it. Everything else will follow - your progression doesn't matter so much as the enjoyment you get out of it, no matter your ranking or gear (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise).
gapid Apr 3rd 2012 12:14PM
The rush is what's so enticing, but that rush is completely gone for me in WoW's current pvp state due to the gross imbalance for geared vs ungeared. If Blizzard created a battle ground that completely equalized everyone's gear and made the focus simply on skill -- much like the new Challenge mode for PVE -- I would totally jump on board with that. I loved the multi-player games like Unreal Tournament's onslaught mode because it was the epitome of team communication, strategy, and skill. I enjoy PVP when it's a fair fight. But PVP is almost always an unfair fight outside of the upper echelon of arenas.
Arrowsmith Apr 3rd 2012 8:09AM
I am not a fan of PvP. It's simply not my preferred method of playing, I suck at it, and I have no desire to get better at it. Not to mention that School of Hard Knocks and the other, lesser PvP-related holiday achievements really soured any hope there would have been of me doing PvP. There was also my one and only foray into Arena, which....yeah, I just plain suck at PvP.
That said, I'm not about to look down on those that DO PvP. They have their fun their way, and more power to them for it. If they let me have my fun my way, then all is well.
Alysandir Apr 3rd 2012 9:56AM
Here is my one and only problem with School: it encourages people to behave like asshats.
Seriously. If Blizzard wants to include PVP-centric achievements as part of a meta, that's fine; School isn't the first one of its kind. But it is the only one, if memory serves correctly, that encourages the worst kind of behavior in other players to try and keep you from getting it. Yes, there are many people who have stories recounting courteous opponents who saw that they had their orphan out and stayed their wrath long enough for the player to get the achievement, but for every one of those stories, you have ten that describe people going out of their way to keep people from getting it. Either because, A) all these non-PVPers are "messing up my BG" with this achievement, so I'm going to teach them a lesson; or B) because it's practically an asshat invitational tournament, where every griefer comes out of the woodwork to harass people in the BGs because they know there will be plentiful targets. It's almost as if Blizzard were encouraging people to their worst natures by refusing to pull this from the meta. How many people out there have the meta completed, except for this one achievement?
Whether you think that's unfair or just "tough luck, suck it up, I had to do it," what does this phenomenon say about the achievement itself?
Tauren Fan Apr 3rd 2012 11:32AM
@ Alysandir
I could not agree more with your comments. School of Hard Knocks (just the mention of it causes me to grind my teeth) also encourages selfish play on the part of the person looking for the acheivement, though, which may be what I hate the most. If I remember them correctly (need to look them up before Children's Week rolls around again) you have to capture a flag in Eye of the Storm, which not every class is suited to do and does not always fit into a winning strategy depending on what your team and the opposing team are doing. The objectives of SoHK are too specific, and they not only bring less experienced pvpers like myself into BGs, but they then force those players to put personal tasks above winning the BG or being a good teammate which just increases the negative impact on the BG and in turn leads to more disdain from serious pvpers and more griefing.
I have no problem with the ones like GNERD Rage where you just need a certain number of honorable kills. These can be completed in the natural flow of PvP, especially if you get into TB or AV. People may target you if they see you have the buff for the holiday acheivment, but you can just queue up again and you will eventually collect 50 honorable kills or whatever the total is.
That said, I will be trying to complete SoHK again this year, as my violet proto drake will almost certainly be hinging on that single acheivement. I'm working on getting some better PvP gear before then, but I will still feel guilty when I queue knowing that I will be looking to complete specific tasks for my own benefit.
Alysandir Apr 3rd 2012 12:57PM
@Tauren Fan:
Well said! I really wasn't looking at it from the perspective of how the seeking player's team would consider it, but you're absolutely right, it promotes a personal agenda in a team-oriented environment, which is directly contrary to what creates a good PVP experience.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that, if Blizzard did pull this from the meta, how few people would actually do it (except for maybe the completists and diehards). That Blizzard continues to keep it in the meta is almost like them saying, "yeah, this one totally sucks, but if we didn't force you to do it to get the mount, few people would do it at all." That's crazy talk. If people need to be coerced into doing something, isn't there inherently something not fun about what you're asking them to do? And if it's not fun, why force them to do it?
Having said all that, it's one mount out of many, and no big deal unless you're a completist. But still...any time you have to dangle a carrot to get people to do something in your game, doesn't that speak loud and clear about the design?
Draelan Apr 3rd 2012 3:52PM
Exactly. Every lecture on Game Design I've attended has always emphasized asking the question: "Yes, you can do it, but is it fun?" Video games are a form of entertainment, and therefore their main goal is to be entertaining.
That's not to say that you can't have aspects that, on their own, aren't considered "fun"... Farming materials for raids is one example of a task that isn't generally considered exciting. However, even these things should be geared towards accomplishing a greater goal that is desirable to the player. We farm raid materials so we can do better in raids so we can kill bosses, which is a fun experience. However, when the reward does not match the work that was put into it, that's when things become unacceptable.
The violet protodrake and the fastest flying speed are your rewards for completing all the holiday achievements. Even if you ignore SoHK, it will still take you a year of diligence to complete it. Most of the achievements are easy enough, with some as simple as looting a Noblegarden egg to other harder achievements like trying to find a Troll Rogue or the ever elusive female Dwarf.
SoHK, though, can be obscenely difficult, especially for some classes. The achievement causes counter-productive gameplay by emphasizing certain parts of a BG to the extreme. In Warsong Gulch it's extreme defense as achievement hunters are given NO incentive to even leave their flag room beyond chasing a flag carrier. AB is extreme offense, try and cap a flag, but if you're too slow, abandon it and try and get the next. EotS is extreme offense in only one aspect: flag, flag, flag, flag, flag. (I've even seen people so obssessed with the flag that no one bothered to capture any towers to bring it to...) Etc. This means that not only do you have to deal with angry PvPers on both sides who resent the achievement hunters screwing with their BGs, but you're pitted against other achievement hunters as well. It's the perfect recipe for a miserable experience for all.
That said, I don't think they need to get rid of SoHK. As Alysandir said, if they removed it from the meta, almost no one would ever do it. HOWEVER, I do think the achievement should be CHANGED. Instead of completing specific objectives in each BG with your orphan out, how about "Win each of the following BGs while you have your orphan out." This would encourage players to participate in the BGs as they were meant to be played and would be less disruptive over-all to normal PvPers.
Conormc Apr 3rd 2012 8:11AM
For me, the most enjoyable part of PvP is beating other people. If you win a PvP activity, you're outplaying others who are trying just as hard to win. I never got the same satisfaction out of Raiding or the like where at the end of the day, you're beating something that was designed to be beaten. I suppose it could be my competitive nature but that just doesn't hold the same allure for me.
TheVanMan Apr 3rd 2012 9:11AM
This is a great point. I love PvP because you can play the same bg over and over again and it's different every time. I like pve too, but once you've downed a boss, it's just queue, rinse and repeat. In AV, for example, you can rush, down towers, turtle or just slowly drain resources and it's all different depending on the other players in the bg. The other thing that's great is that each queue is relatively quick and doesn't depend so much on other ppl's attitudes, just their effort. In pve there's always a bad attitude or someone talking trash.
Caz Apr 3rd 2012 12:26PM
Yes! Exactly! When I first started playing, I took PvP WAY too personally (which I think a lot of players do). Once I got over that and realized the other team wasn't attacking me because I was me - I started to really enjoy BGs. The rush of taking out another player, especially since I play a Discipline priest, is beyond words. It's like...eating really good cake.
To players who get frustrated by constantly dying in a BG - get over it - it's not you, it's them. Really. Click release, wait for the rez timer, and get back in the fray.
Playing BGs has made me a much better player overall. No NPC mob or boss can challenge your skills and reflexes the way another player can.
mmcpattillo Apr 3rd 2012 8:16AM
For me, the reason that I have never enjoyed my experiences in PvP (which are limited to various world encounters and random battlegrounds) is because I have found the atmosphere to be quite hostile. What I mean by that is, in a battleground it seems that 9 out of 10 times people are fighting with each other more than they are fighting against the other team! All I ever see are people pointing the blame, claiming how terrible everyone else is, and how amazing they are. To an extent this can be seen in random dungeons, however from my perspective it is far worse in BG's.
zazumel Apr 3rd 2012 8:36AM
^ This! ^
Watching people berate others over and over gets tiring after 5 minutes, let alone BG after BG.
I do enjoy it sometimes, but as soon as the funsuckers show up, I'm out. Not worth it....it's a game. It's supposed to be fun.
CN Apr 3rd 2012 9:01AM
Definitely. I had someone just berate a friend and I because we were at Stables playing horde. We had taken the flag in a four cap (as we were winning earlier) and I was stuck defending it. Instead of rushing of to let it get capped, I stayed there. My friend wanted to play with me so he and I defended that node for the entire game. Near the end, when we were losing, and we had gone from four nodes, to one, back to two, a warrior who was from my server started berating everyone. I stated something and he just started into me, calling me everything you can in the book including the N word repeatedly. What really irritated me was I was top dmg as horde, had 3rd hks and 2nd kbs for both sides and we kept that node the entire game, and that played was close to the bottom and so many deaths versus his hks it wasn't funny. After we got out of the bg and had to deal with him in bg chat, he whispered me a few times and then put me on ignore.
I didn't freak out or yell back at him, but what made me happy was other people started defending me, and pointing out numbers and stating the fact that my friend and I had help stables the entire time, which until the last 300 points of the game was under constant attack. It was because we made sure to do call-outs and keep people off the flag.
it's just sad that a few people who just like to talk trash in chat can ruin the game for so many people. At first you just put them on ignore, but after a while it gets quite old.
Nagaina Apr 3rd 2012 9:08AM
Ugh. That really is the worst part about PvP -- I can deal with the unsportsmanlike conduct of the opposing team, the /spit and /rude gestures and even that verdammt /flag of ownership, but a random BG team full of pointlessly hostile nerdrage toward your own teammates...that's something else entirely.