The rating reqs are probably the biggest issue effecting population as a whole. It’s archaic and doesn’t fit with our modern community. It just discourages people from playing, rather than its original design of encouraging players.
I want to see them removed more than anything, it would do so much to help the population
honestly just a NA issue, all pve community and give me free gear group of demographics.
But Blizzard could actually go after the x-mlg pro NA RMT booster squad and start clearing the gatekeeping with removing the cheaters in the 2800-3200 2’s bracket, that place is a cesspool.
EU participation is pretty good for arena. I play on EU and NA.
and rating req is dumb af, they should remove those requirements on the armor and keep it on the high end weapon
Good suggestion is just to post some Wrath arena PvP vids and get yourself known. Thats how so many of us did it last time. The ratings to get glad are hundreds higher than they were back in original Wrath.
Same exact spec existed before he came along.
NA is better at PvE mostly, but not always, EU is much better at PvP almost always.
I have a better idea and the only one that will make a difference.
Solo que for arenas. Thats it and that is the only thing that will change anything. Nothing else to say.
They have reaources to add heroic + dungeons. They have resources to change the ilvl if all the phase 2 gear. They have resources to add hardmode servers. They have resources to revamp honor system for era bgs. They have enough resources to do anything they want.
Exactly this.
I did a lot of arena in TBC Classic and had a blast. I’ve always floated around 1600-1800 rating. And I was perfectly fine with getting my 4/5 set and pushing to try to get the weapon and never cared about the shoulders. (I think shoulders being 2k is fine)
I quit PvP early in Wrath (couple weeks in S5) due to exactly this reason. And due to a combination of the S5 rating deflation (playing at 1400 was like playing at 2k) I couldn’t get much of any of the gear and was demoralized and quit.
I recently started PvPing again because of the inflation making the rating requirements easier to obtain but they still shouldn’t exist.
It needs to just go back to TBC’s season 1-3 of everything being available at any rating except weapons and shoulders. (Like I said earlier I’d be fine if they left the shoulders locked.)
I played feral in Classic, and TBCC and the pvp gear was often good, if not BiS for some slots.
If some of it was good in pve too, that would go a long way to help too. Idk, if that is a good idea though.
True PvP rewards should be cosmetics.
no legit go play retail
I personally think solo Q does more harm than good and is totally a retail thing. I don’t agree with it coming to wrath personally. It’s a very anti social game type and was added in because the retail PvP population is incredibly small.
Working within the system we already have should be done first before going down that route imho. Encouraging people to queue up is the best thing we can do. And by resources we both know the classic team is small and stretched thin, they have to prioritize things they work on unfortunately.
WOTLK arena sucks in general if you are not a arms warrior, paladin, eleshaman, unholy dk.
its a pvp minigame on a pve game. there are much better pvp games elsewhere.
they dont fix the cheaters, the RMT 40$/hr + 20k gold/hr boosts, or piloting.
I barely want to run dungeons in that matter as it is.
Requiring us to do so for PvP is even worse.
If I didn’t have a solid arena partner, I doubt I would bother with arena at all and just stick to BGs.
It already exists in the form of skirmishes; which, if I were to add anything to your OP list, I would make it so that skirmishes reward some honor and arena points.
I spent a lot of time browsing the old forum archive and wowhead. From what I can tell, the motivation for blizzard creating rating restrictions was due to a lot of people back in the day complaining about “welfare epics” in tbc (where the term actually originated). Previously epics (like actual purple epic gear) were incredibly difficult to obtain, most people wore blues at endgame, but the first two seasons of tbc were where if you simply did 10 games of arena per week you could get gear on par with some of the hardest raids at the time. Of course some people (vocal pvpers and raiders at the time) hated the idea that any casual andy could get good gear, and so blizz caved in during season 3 and added rating reqs, and made them even stricter during wrath.
Strongly agree. Maybe 100 honor per skirm win or something to get people into it. Super good idea.
Points should be given out by just playing the game. The easier they are to get and more avenues to get them the better. As the above poster said PvP is a mini game and the gear is by no means BIS in PvE
Solo queue would be cool but it would still be plagued with tons of paladins and dks
Anyway, back on topic
Instead of making arena with skill* based ratings, i think it should just simplify to being no different than the honor grind. Give people conquest points, lets say 25 for winning an arena match and 10 if you lose. I don’t think it should be an easy grind, IMO i think you should do at least 1k games to buy say the full set. BUT it would at least give people and incentive to actually queue up and participate as the goal seems more reachable and reasonable.
*aka being very good at the flavor of the month class, and in a meta comp. And of course when everyone plays the same thing is where you see sweaty warrior/hpala teams stuck at 1600, because they can’t beat the 1700 warrior/hpalas etc. Lol
OP, idk, i use to be all about trying to find way to incentivize the lower brackets, to bring some variety, but honestly it’s only an issue for the top brackets. I could care less if there is less glad spots now. At this point in wrath, Imma do VOA, get my gloves and legs, do my ten games weekly until im arena capped, and then never step foot in arenas for the rest of the season, because I hate arenas and only want gear for BGs. (I’m pretty casual with this game).
I don’t see any changes being done to WOTLK arena. Good write up though.
You meow at Wafectus.
Hello fellow Lagergrasp enjoyer.
Didn’t Legion give a loot box with a pvp blue for every skirmish you won?
I actually mentioned this in my post. A vast majority of arena players only do arena so they can get better gear to do battlegrounds with their friends. These changes are directly designed to help players like you and encourage you to spend more time in arena, but if not it still aims to give you constant rewards and keep you involved in the PvP community.
@Tinkerfell - I personally HATE the endless 25 point win system, as it leads to arena becoming an endless grind. On retail the “grind 200 wins” to finish your catch-up cap is some seriously horrid gameplay from my perspective. I’d much prefer a weekly 10 games for an point cap, with any additional games played at my own discretion. 1000 games a season is far and above what most gladiator’s even play. That’s a serious amount of games.
@Ruroki - It did, but legion in general was a total loot-box fest. I think loot boxes are inherently bad game design and would never ask for this in classic. Didn’t BFA ONLY give you arena gear from loot boxes the entire expansion and it was universally hated?
Also give oce back its pvp.
I haven’t stepped foot in an arena and only one bg since they did that.
I think that was a countermeasure to queues not popping.
Merge is always their bandaid fix to dying populations, rather than fix what caused the attrition in the first place.