It would be fine if PvP numbers were in the same ballpark as PvE numbers.
But where do you start?
New maps? New objectives? Class simplification? Rewards? Gear being useful? MMR? Rating inflation? Smurfing? Sales? Class balance? Comp balance?
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We used to have similar numbers back in MoP and WoD days. I agree, most effort is just closing the stable door after the horses have bolted. To me their first priority needs to be fixing the queue system in randoms as much as they can and reduce power variances to support newer and casual players.
Best way to break premades while still allowing friends to play together…
Abandon factions.
Fill BG sides with a random mix of each faction.
When 2 or more 5man groups try to sync Que, they might end of fighting each other instead.
Also would reduce Que times significantly.
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Sync queue is a symptom of a poor population. If pulling off a sync was 1/100,000 instead of 1/2, it would just die out.
Which brings us back full circle.
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That’s about how long ago they realized that there is no place for bgs in their grand and glorious vision of wow as a esports lobby game. They love arenas. Arenas are easy to broadcast. It would take knowledge, intelligence, experience, and resources to turn RBGs into broadcast material. So instead they decided to turn bgs into a reward for exploiters and those who queue sync premades and a bad feel for the players who used to pay to sub so they could spam bgs. Because surely the half the population that used to queue for bgs during wrath would switch to rated arenas if it felt really bad to do bgs, right?
Players start in bgs and move up to rated PvP. Players who quit after bad experiences in bgs will never boost rated participation numbers. That’s why participation is falling, has been falling for a decade.
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DH mobility is why I quit in early Legion
Can’t use Heroic Leap properly in WSG because of a pebble (“No path available”)
But DHs were allowed to glide over the entire map while carrying the flag and then use double jump to get out of bounds in the flag room
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As someone who used to PvP and quit doing it, here’s what I think they could address that would get me back into trying it.
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Relevant rewards. PvP might as well be a separate game. I can’t being anything into it from other game modes and I can’t take anything out. That means I have no incentive to add PvP to my activities. Also, sets should be unique to the PvP season instead of recolored PvE sets.
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Class complexity. To be good at PvP, you need to have a pretty wide ranging knowledge of every spec in addition to your own. As the game has grown older, that had become more and more difficult, raising the bar ever higher every season. It’s also a problem elsewhere, but it’s magnified in PvP.
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Rating/MMR. Let’s assume there were enough people that MMR could work and you only ever fight 50/50 battles. Your rating would barely move. MMR and the matchmaking algorithm could use some help to prevent sync queue and smurfing, but I’d replace rating with something like renown. We need rated/unrated and the ability to solo or party queue in either.
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Content. New maps, new objectives. Rotate them out every season. We need an order of magnitude more arena and battleground maps to be to rotate them. It would also help if there were some kind of borrowed power/gimmick every season, a la Fortnite.
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Sales. I think decoupling rewards from rating would kill sales by itself. Honestly I’d like to see this just be against the ToS completely, but especially in rated PvP.
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Lol pvp has been dead for years. Arena ruined pvp in bc and it’s never recovered.
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I think all randoms should use PvP gear with templates that have fully customizable stats, which would encourage players to experiment. Teams should be balanced around a background rating system that only the player can see for himself.
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You sound like someone I know whom I agree with, the only change I’d make is keep ratings hidden or sync communities will build teams around ratings to cheat queues. Tell everyone their score only at the end of the season and grant rewards like silly titles for high scores.
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how would you know if you need to improve? what if you think you are top of the world and are in fact closer to the bottom because you don’t know what your score is which means you have no ability to learn what factors affect it.
Wait until you find out about SoD lmao.
you aren’t supposed to be good from day 1. its a learning process that takes time, practice, and experience. i think a lot of people jump in expecting to be the hero of their own story making clips and plays of their own only to have that dream squashed rather quickly. the next part is the most important part, people have to internally choose to overcome the adversity of the negative feelings that accompany not only losing the game, but failing to achieve your goals, and that is difficult especially when the rest of the game treats you like a king. PVP not only doesn’t treat you like a king, but you can and will be made fun of by someone for your failures, and inversely to how good you become, as in, the better you get, the more people relish in your failure//loss/killing you.
the general factor affecting PVP participation is the rate at which the playing population is able to overcome adversity, and this is declining everywhere, not just in wow.
All the losses might be some indication and they can always pursue rated if ratings are important to them.
you can go 0-6 in RSS through no fault of your own with no ability to do anything simply due to the comp you got. wins and losses aren’t the whole story when it comes to how good someone is.
These are random bgs we’re talking about. It has nothing to do with Solo Shuffle, especially not the rated version. People who care that much about their position on some imaginary ladder that may or may not even exist would be doing rated, where there’s a real ladder.
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not everyone wants every single game to be a super close high effort game, even players who do rated will still play in randoms. the reason random bgs are popular is that you get a random reward, maybe you get an easy game, maybe you get the best game in years.
The point wouldn’t be for the rating to measure the person’s skill rather a measure to drive them towards a 50% win rate.
No one wants to be on the receiving end of an easy victory by the opponents, it drives people away especially when it’s due to a broken system that allows people to stack teams against and farm random players.
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I agree. The purpose of this hidden rating should be to improve matchmaking. Teams of mixed rating would be matched against other teams of mixed rating.
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It doesn’t have to be complicated, +1 per win -1 per loss and a sorting algorithm but it’s just a question of commitment to maintenance and troubleshooting as issues arise.