Addressing Ion’s Points About PvP Vendors

PVP Arenas
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Hi all! I know I am a few days late and that there a probably a lot of other threads on this topic but I thought I’d give my 2 cents. PvP vendors, a largely contentious topic amongst the PvP community was brought up in the most recent Q&A. The game director mentioned the vendor system having problems and so in this thread, I will address some of what was said about this issue.

This here is a non-issue. All you need to do is put markers on the map like what you have now for Mugambala and Hook Point. Even the Mists Of Pandaria PvP Vendors have a marker on the map which give their location.

If your main concern is that people wouldn’t know what to do with said currency, this is also a non-issue. Anyone can easily figure out that honor points would obviously be spent at a vendor with the tag <Honor Vendor> and conquest points would obviously be spent at a vendor with the tag <Conquest Vendor>. It was very self-explanatory.

In fact, I’d argue that the current system can be more confusing to new players then the previous one. The old system was simple, earn a currency, spend said currency at a vendor to get a piece of gear. Now it’s look at the conquest bar to see what the next piece of gear you get will be. And then if there’s a specific slot that you want, go on the website and look at the conquest schedule to see what week that piece of gear will be available on. And along the way save your challenger’s coins to check upgrade brackets. I probably didn’t even describe how the challenger’s coins system works but that’s just an example of how non-self-explanatory this new system is.

Out of the two methods for acquiring PvP gear that I listed above, which one really seems more obscure and confusing?

Sure, there was a specific order in which people would purchase their gear but that does not mean putting it on a fixed schedule mixed with random rewards brings back the feeling of control that the vendor system had.

One big difference between putting gear on a fixed schedule and putting it on a vendor is that if I get said piece of gear via a random reward that just so happens to be the slot on the conquest bar for the week, I’d have no reason to fill it other than to make sure it is filled up so I don’t miss future rewards that the conquest schedule might have that could be an upgrade for me.

On the other hand, if we had the vendor system and I just so happen to get lucky and the random reward system gives me the piece of gear I was planning on spending my conquest points on for the week, I could just use my points to buy another piece of gear and therefore the work I put in for the week would not be meaningless.

This right here is something that can be mitigated and there are two ways you can go about it.

  1. Bring back PvP specific stats i.e. resilience, pvp power.

This right here would make it to where PvE’ers wouldn’t feel the need or urge to do some PvP if they wanted an extra piece of gear and vice versa. Nobody wants to do content that they don’t care about to be able to compete in the area of the game they are interested in and this is one way of making sure that is the case. If you brought back vendors and put PvP specific stats on the gear, PvE’ers would not have to worry about needing to do PvP for gear and PvP’ers wouldn’t feel the need to PvE for gear as they do now.

  1. Bring back Justice/Valor Points Vendors for PvE’ers.

If you feel that giving PvP’ers a currency system for acquiring gear would be unfair to PvE’ers who don’t have one at the moment aside from the Azerite gear vendor, then why not just bring back the old Justice/Valor points system for PvE’ers? If everyone had a currency system as a means for acquiring gear, it would strike the right balance between making sure people have goals that they can work towards with there also being a chance for excitement along the way. This is a philosophy that was stated as wanting to work towards at Blizzcon in response to a question where someone asked, “Why is there so much RNG in the game and are there any plans to pull back from it?”

With all that being said, the current system for acquiring PvP gear is just terrible. It contradicts said goal of wanting to create a system of gearing that is less confusing. It makes PvP’ers feel obligated to do PvE for gearing due to how powerful certain trinkets in PvE are compared to PvP trinkets and how stats matter again. I never understood why stats were made important again yet we didn’t get a way to reliably customize and pick them. If you brought back the vendor system, we would not only have more customization of our character and control of how we would acquire gear, but it would also give the opportunity for there to be an even playing field in PvP which is something that has not been the case at all this expansion with how inconsistent the systems for acquiring gear have been.

EDIT: For those coming into the thread wondering where they can find the VOD of when this question is answered, here it is:

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Did he really use that excuse?
I have to explain the conquest cap to people all the time, I never had to explain vendors.

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Here is a link to the Q&A if you want more context.

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People should be insulted that he thinks the people that play his game are so stupid, that finding a vendor and spending currency on it, is too complicated.

Fire this moron.

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What a literally bloviating moron, Felryn deserves better :frowning:

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R.I.P. vendors, you’re dearly missed.

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More than you’ll ever know. :cry:

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You had a choice and you made bad choices when you bought your gear. So we’re gonna make it so you might not get any gear at all.

Thx Ion Hocuspocus

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We are also going to make it so you get the same piece over and over again. That way, since you are so stupid, if you accidentally scrap one-- you will have a few extra!

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They do not listen to, nor care about our feedback. Stop playing this game.

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Problem is pve ing. Getting say hands and then wanting to play arena and having your only reward be hands that may be worse ilvl. Why would you bother queing… until you realize you have no option but to get the hands in order to have the next weeks piece unlock.

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“people cant find the vendors”

Really Ion? Thats totally not a valid reason.

Right now you have to find the npc to hand in a quest that you dont “accept” to choose between a couple items. Its more confusing than a standard vendor.

Seriously, this whole game is about finding npcs.

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Not just this but there had been sooooo much more freaking confusion about this system than there ever was with vendors :joy: like not even comparable levels…

All his arguments show how much PvP he’s done throughout his career… We are truly second thoughts on the PvP side.

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They literally view their player base as idiots.

They believe that acquiring currency and using vendors is too hard, and don’t like that players have to use outside sources to find out information for them. But that literally makes no sense because players have been using outside sources for WoW information since the game came out - questing, gearing, raiding, pvp, professions, simming, rotations, the list goes on.

Player choice should be much more important in the game. The WoD system with the catch up mechanic was perfect, then ruined with legion and bfa’s pvp “system.” If anything, they made the new system more difficult with the extra steps and nuances. Bellular, a PVE YouTube content producer, explains it well in his recent video

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This is so retarded. I literally got 4 Sinister Glad Staves this week. all the same ilvl. 370… Vendored them all because they were garbage to the 385 weapon I had from SEASON 1! Thanks blizzard, and even more so Ion for ruining the PVP system.

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wtb WoD gearing.

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I think most pvp focused players prefer the WoD style, the only players who don’t are the PvE’ers who want to have a gear advantage in PvP over everyone else.

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Both priests I capped this week only had a staff as the weapon option. But yeah, great system.

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wake me up when they go back to making the game for people who actually play it

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Apparently in the literal sense too. Sounds like everyone misses those obscure PvP vendors because they’re too hard to find.