Arena today is at odds with the direction of retail WoW. Dragonflight took retail WoW into a more casual, bite sized game that caters to modern audiences. Dragonflight has also been a success story that reinforces Blizzard’s direction.
Arena, on the other hand, is dying under the weight of its own complexity and shrinking pool of players. Top arena players know this and are calling for changes, but the reality is that BGs have always been a much better fit for casual play, and require far less investment than arena.
Solo shuffle was a step towards the death of Arena. It proved that casual fast food play is what the majority of players want, and it completely deflated the 3s and 2s player base, thereby making all 3 modes lack enough players for fast DPS games. Blitz will not only remove even more players, but it will also kill solo shuffle as Blitz will provide an even lower bar for conquest and rating. The end result is that Blizzard will focus on the most popular rated game mode and streamers will focus on it as well, leaving arena to become as niche as competitive BfA penguin sledding in 2024.
What really killed arena participation started when they moved Gladiator to 3v3 only. Then they openly encouraged smurfing and boosting. That killed casual arena play.
I believe that WoW has always had excellent hardcore retention, and that there will always be a cohort of “lifers” who will keep 2s and 3s alive as a small, exclusive community where the barrier to entry is extremely high.
The only question is whether the Gladiator mount will be retained as a 3s exclusive going forward with 5 rated game modes, and the lions share of people playing random lobby modes.
Stop trolling. RSS is the best thing to happen to PvP, its only a shame that it hasn’t received consistent and competent maintenance so that certain (healer) related issues are solved.
Battle ground blitz in its current state is a gimmick mode. I prefer normal BG’s over it. It could become a legitimate ranked mode, if the devs decide to actually make maps that are smaller to accommodate the lesser team size, and also negating the need for gimmicky speed on mounts.
And from a dev team creative standpoint, there is much more that can be done in future BG Blitz settings than arena, especially since arena is solely focused on killing one player ASAP.
Healer issues in solo shuffle can’t be solved. You could offer healers a cheque for each match, that doesn’t make healing random players in 3s fun. Healing random players with no communication when the game is balanced around PvE damage profiles and self sufficient CC simply isn’t fixable through tuning or rewards. These are systemic issues that will remain issue because WoW is a PvE game as I said in my OP.
Blitz will offer a much better healing experience for random groupings, which is why it will also kill solo shuffle.
Your entire first post had enough copium to fuel a lifetime
BGB is gonna be rated come TWW and you’ll be lucky if blizzard actually opts to remove 2s and 3s over removing RSS as they move to consolidate what’s left of the ladder
Enjoy your waiting room lobby while you still can friend, though I doubt you’ll get to ride historic inflation to an achievement you didn’t deserve again
I think removing competitive incentives in anything pvp-related was just a bad move.
They took away HK competition (great for people who want to grind without having to be mechanical strategical gods in the arena) when they could have left it in and people would compete in bgs each season to top HKs.
They took away the 5v5 bracket in arena, was an undoubtedly easier way to get glad on some battlegroups
They took away 2v2 gladiator. Still don’t really know why. Reducing rewards to an elite few within a niche part of a PVE MMO was only going to reduce participation.
I’m sure I’m forgetting some things, but you get the idea. We need something for everyone, casual and competitive… and there’s going to be inevitable crossover if we share the same pvp gear anyways.
