Changing the Honor system for Classic Fresh

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Edit - Aug 28
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT PROPOSING TO MAKE THE HONOR SYSTEM SIGNIFICANTLY EASIER. THIS THREAD IS DISCUSS THE PROBLEMS WITH HONOR SYSTEM AND WHETHER MAKING A CHANGE (HOWEVER MINOR) COULD OR COULD NOT BE A BENEFIT TO CLASSIC FRESH. I AM OPEN TO CRITICISM BUT NOT INTENTIONAL MISINTERPRETATION.

Edit - Aug 29
Another thing that inspired this post is the idea that Classic Fresh will likely need some changes to make people want to come back to play it. Many of us have “finished” Classic at least twice already, and going back to grind the exact same game again, just 2 years later is not going to be appealing to most. I am happy to grind the Honor system again, but not likely if it’s entirely unchanged, and the exact same experience.

I am a pretty big fan of the Vanilla honor system, and love how hardcore it is. In Vanilla, my warrior made it to rank 12 and 10 in Classic (on Horde with insane queues). So I wouldn’t call myself super hardcore, but I have a good understanding of the system and how insane it is.

Rankers know the bracket and decay mechanics require an extremely unhealthy lifestyle to earn the higher ranks. We saw a major issue in Classic, because the system has been figured out, so competition became much worse - probably worse than the original developers ever foresaw. Bracket stacking and honor pool boosting became the norm on just about every Classic server with a decent population. There were also other forms of exploitative behavior like account sharing, but on a much lesser scale. All of this type of behavior was very controversial. It of course caused a lot of drama too, like bracket breakers, and so on. It really showed, yet again, how flawed the honor system is.

In light of this, I am curious whether the devs and community are open to a discussion on adjusting the classic fresh honor system. If players are resorting to such behavior as described above, is this system in its current form, a part of the game that should remain exactly the same? I fully understand that the gear is extremely powerful and can make a lot of raid gear obsolete up to a certain point. That’s why it’s important to weigh how easily or how quickly players can get it. So I believe that keeping the spirit of the system intact is still important because if everyone were running around in Rank 14 gear by the time BWL is released, that could be problematic in many ways.

I want to finish this by throwing out a couple examples. It’s no secret that some private servers have played with this idea. Some of these below examples are taken from those servers, where players were generally positively receptive to them. TO CLARIFY, THESE ARE EXAMPLES, NOT PROPOSALS OR NECESSARILY GOOD IDEAS.:

  • removing or reducing honor decay, but potentially increasing honor required in between ranks so rankers can take breaks
  • honor converted into currency, where gear is purchasable with [a lot of] points
  • changing bracket sizes so that achieving ranks up to a certain point isn’t quite as much of a slog
  • allowing certain gear (say the blue set) to be optionally purchasable with marks after a certain point in server progression

I’m interested in any thoughts, feedback, ideas, or if you would prefer it stay the same, please feel free to explain why it would be positive for the game on fresh classic servers.

Edit: For some reason I am unable to reply in this thread, so I am editing my original post. Could be my subscription lapsed. It appears that many respondents did not read or fully understand my appreciation for the honor system, and what my intention is. I have put a disclaimer at the top of this post, in hopes that people are not confused.

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I certainly hope not. Why ruin something that has inspired passionate play for 15 years and turn pvp gear into something everyone can have? Shall Nax gear go on a vendor too?

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Yeah make pvp gear more accessible! No decay system! If you like the pvp system with decay then you are a psychopath

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Here we go again with all the #muhchanges before fresh even comes out. :rofl:

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Or maybe they just don’t feel everyone is entitled to everything.

I’m not saying I’m against any kind of tweeks, but personally I have no problem with the system. I’d just play and achieve what I achieve. If players make the choice to grind for the highest ranks, that’s up to them. But I consider it a retail mentality that it’s ‘not fair’ only a few people can get rank 14. Exclusivity is a good thing.

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The Classic system is very unhealthy and doesn’t measure skill–just time invested. Moreover, exploiting the system by boosting the pool with level one HKs (oftentimes by paying gold or real money) further undermines the legitimacy of the system.

I think having a vendor, however, isn’t in the spirit of Classic WoW. Consequently, I agree with the suggestion that Blizz remove honor decay and boost the honor required to balance it out.

Also, require players to be at least Level 10 ( minimum to queue for a BG) to count toward the weekly player pool so the pool exploiting stops.

Increasing the rep gain would also be good and putting a timer on WSG.

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The brackets MUST be expanded to allow for 13/14 progression if the current system is kept. It would be terrible to rank on a very low population server, if youve read the bracket numbers you understand what Im referring to. If you havent and are interested in ranking past 11 you should most certainly check out the horrible lack of slots near the top.

Theres a fungus that grows on people when they sit on their rear too long, so get out the Lamisil. The prestige / weapons are nice, but I say use those months working and buy a motorcycle, its healthier

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I mean…so? I’ve never understood this obsession with forcing that e-sport mentality into an mmorpg. There’s plenty of games built specifically for that purpose. Why does an mmo have to be as well? But people feel this need to prove how leet they are. ‘See my sick skillz!!!’

It’s a freaking video game. It’s an mmorpg. Who cares? It should be about having fun. Look what this e-sport nonsense did to the Retail game. Mass homogenization. Everyone needs a stun, a slow, an interrupt. Every class needs to have equal tools. 'Cause if it’s not perfectly balanced how will I be able to gauge my epeen meter?

But at the end of the day is the game more fun? I think people tend to get lost in thinking about how things should work, posting on the forums, making spreadsheets and long arguments and just forget…to have fun. To get lost in the experience.

So when it comes to a pvp rewards system, is that your only reason for doing the content? Does the pvp itself mean nothing? Is the joy of playing not enough?

This is why I say over and over and over again that players need to adapt to the game, not the other way around. Until players are willing to step back, chill out, and relax it’s not going to feel like a game. It’s just…playing a calculator. And we get enough of that with Retail.

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I guarantee no one who hit R14 in Vanilla or Classic thought it was “fun.”

The suggestions posed in this thread are nowhere near turning Classic PVP into “Retail.” Chill man.

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You completely miss the point. What I’m saying is this notion that everyone needs to be able to earn the top gear is very much a Retail mindset. There’s nothing wrong with only a few achieving that. And if someone chooses to pursue it, that’s up to them. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.

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I think this is the primary key. When it comes to playing a game online it is nice to realize the addictive nature of the game. Players may (and probably in truth already actually have) had heart attacks from playing non stop stressful PvP for 3 months. One of the officers in my guild became quite a different person after about week 6 of the PvP rank grind.

I appreciate the difficulty in getting R14 and becoming Grand Marshal or the Horde equivalent. My suggestion to alleviate this is somewhat of a balance.

Have a ‘pause’ option for honor. (that can be used 3 times per life of character)
or
Have reduced % of decay (if it’s 10% drop it to 5% or 3% each week)
or
Increase the % of players that make it into the top middle and low end of pvp brackets for honor gained.

Somehow reward ‘talent’ over time investment more… with out eliminating time investment completely. Example: require an ‘iron man’ (run the flag 3 times no deaths) once per week; or give a bonus for returning 10 flags in a match; incorporate some kind of achievement system that is difficult but if you can pull it off guarantees you a slot in the top 10% for that week)

Just some thoughts.

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I don’t think anyone in this thread is proposing that everyone needs to earn the top gear.

Removing decay but balancing it with increased honor requirements isn’t going to give gear to everyone. Increasing the number of R14s from 1 to 3 or 4 per week wouldn’t be giving it to “everyone,” especially in light of the massive grind it takes deterring most people from trying.

I’m not saying these suggestions are the answer, but they are a far cry from the “retail mindset” you are so concerned about.

I really think decay should be eliminated because it’s just straight up unhealthy and doesn’t promote cross-play. It works against it actually.

I think:

  1. Decay elimination
  2. Increased honor requirements
  3. Reputation requirements for certain items
  4. Give “win” tokens for BG victories, which would be a currency, in addition to rank and gold, so the system rewards teamwork/skill and punishes the bots and afkers.
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I’m pretty much onboard with what others are saying here. I never did PvP in Classic because I knew it was a broken system.

Decay needs to go. But without reducing difficulty. The amount of effort should stay the same, just you should have the option to do that effort over a longer time period.

So basically what everyone else has said, namely decay elimination and increased honor requirements, but also increase the ranking point from higher ranks.

So at lower ranks, reaching rank 14 would take years. Literally. Like, you won’t even which rank 14 by the release of Naxx.

But at the highest ranks, it takes three months as per usual.

I’d still PvP then, because I’d know I’d eventually reach rank 14, even if it takes 5 years (assuming they have lifetime servers after).

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I said I’m not against any tweeks to the system. I’m just…talking in general about Classic and somewhat on this topic.

I’m probably being a bit naïve in thinking players can change their approach as to how they view and what they value in the game. It’s just that I’ve played since Vanilla. So, for example, think about Vanilla pvp. The vast majority of players didn’t care about their rank. They didn’t even think about it. The system didn’t matter, because they were there for the experience. The top ranks were beyond their reach, which gave a freedom to not even stress about that stuff. Over the years of course players started to care, as Blizzard made things more accessible. Suddenly everyone can be decked out in purplez. So now it’s not about the fun of the experience. It’s increasingly more about grinding the gear. And then grinding it in the most efficient way possible. To the point where that’s pretty much all most players care about. In my opinion accessibility has some pretty severe downsides.

So I’m not super stoked about changing the system and taking the game down that same path again. But, I suppose it’s too much to hope players can change their mentality and go back to a simpler time.

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I was actually going to make a very similar thread but since you beat me to it I’ll cut to the chase here. You’re ideas however were very similar to mine. Here they are:

  1. Disable decay for pvp ranking. Make the system less punishing for those who can’t keep up a full job grind every week. Not sure if I’d increase the honor required for ranking though, it’s already quite difficult.

  2. Do not release the honor system before battlegrounds. It wasn’t that bad on lower pop servers but utterly destroyed many high pop servers leading to many of the imbalanced servers we have right now.

  3. Do not release Rank 12-14 PvP gear as it is until phase 5 at least (where it is on par with AQ40 gear for many classes.) This would greatly discourage both the proliferation of premades in battlegrounds and the notion that to get your PvE bis before phase 5 you’d have to rank in PvP. Admittedly this causes other problems, including no incentive to go beyond rank 10 before its released due to no rewards besides a title. Perhaps there is a better way to avoid the problems that come with extremely early HWL gear, such as progressive itemization (i.e. it gets better stat wise once phase 5 released).

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But this wouldn’t be such a big deal with the absence of rank decay. So players could always come back to it.

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I like the idea of having off weeks.

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Why not make it easier?

The Classic honor grind is a horrific system. Some of us have jobs and the Classic honor system doesn’t test skill, it just tests your ability to stay logged in.

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Its a bit like climbing Everest. Mt. Everest isn’t a particularly difficult climb - at least there are no technically difficult parts. It doesn’t test skill. But it does require enormous stamina, persistence and desire. People do it because it is just such a monumentally difficult push and relatively few people achieve it. If you want to test your climbing prowess - try K2 or Annapurna.

Rank 14 is a huge grind. And the gear you achieve for the effort is decent, but not nearly as good as Nax stuff. It is all about the push and the grind and the stamina, that’s why people want it.

Why do you want it, if it isn’t a sign of skill?

Making it easier just cheapens the achievement. Besides it isn’t something that you or anyone else needs to play the rest of the game. Leave it be.

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Make it so players who reach rank 12 have to challenge the lowest players at rank 13 for the position. Then 13 to 14. If you don’t make it to the challenge 1) you’re obviously not that hardcore if you’re not on wow 24/7 2) you lose the position and drop down to 12/13 respectively.