Pardo wasn’t saying that arena was a mistake in terms of gameplay because “arena is a bad idea hurdurr”.
He said that it was a mistake in terms of design specifically because: " 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."
In a nutshell, because it was difficult to balance with PvE. That’s it.
It’s also important to note that the interview was over 10 years ago. The game has changed immensely since then, and so has the Blizzard team and it’s capabilities.
Now stop using a 10-year old misinterpreted quote as your argument for disliking arenas.
I don’t want it to be a balanced environment. I want it to be like Classic, imbalanced as hell but each class provides unique ways of dealing with problems.
Balance is boring, but in rated environments, balance is required because once again, your assigned skill points determine your mood for the day. If you get gibbed because of something out of your control, and your “skill points” are lowered because of that, its a bad gameplay experience.
Ive watched the same thing happen with Overwatch. More heroes are introduced, more homogenization across the board, more balance, more boredom. At least people who only care about rating get to feel good about themselves though.
I love when gd blames PvP for all the balancing changes. It’s somehow our fault.
Then you look at half their examples and they are pve changes (like the blood elf one was op for both, it wasn’t a PvP fix lol). Definitely way more pve changes that affect us. Spriest this expansion wants to say hi.
I can see that, but let me offer a side perspective:
The game has swung too far in both directions.
First, by mop, every class had a whole bunch of stuff and they responded by pruning.
Now, every class has significantly less, yet they are incredibly homogenized in playstyle and abilities.
I personally think there should be some sense of balance so a bg isn’t dominated by one class/spec (see 7.0 legion prepath, re: sin rogues).
I do think having differences be more stark would be nice though, leading to feeling more unique with a class then just the color.
Without any balance, some classes/specs would be completely useless which isn’t really that interesting either.
And in the sense of gaming experience, playing the non best spec/class wouldn’t be very fun either as you get murdered by whatever class/spec is unbalanced above you.
A meta for anything (bgs, arenas, raids, mythics) will always develop around what is best, and at least with a concept of attempted balance some specs get a chance to feel productive or playable.
Yeah, thanks. I’ve read the interview fully. Your “stop” instruction not needed or wanted.
We didn’t engineer the game and classes and balance around it Mistake we just added it on Mistake. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? Mistake, not knowing the direction of the game. a lot of times players who don’t PvP don’t understand why their classes are changing Mistake, confusing your player-base. I don’t think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we’d have to do to balance Mistake, lack of foresight.
gd… Gets me riled up Everytime lol