Quoting from Alpha test notes:
DIMINISHING RETURNS
- Developers’ notes: We are making some adjustments to how diminishing returns work in World of Warcraft. “Diminishing returns” refers to the system that reduces the duration of crowd control effects if they are used repeatedly against the same target. In order to make crowd control less frustrating in PvP, players will now become immune after 2 applications of crowd control from the same category (ex. after being stunned twice, you are now immune). We felt that very low duration crowd controls were making it hard to cast spells and generally felt excessive. For PvE, we are removing the immunity after 3 stuns. Our primary goal here is to remove the need to track diminishing returns state on enemies. Instead of enforcing a hidden and complex system to reduce effectiveness of stuns, we are doing a pass on classes and making sure the amount of stuns and their durations are appropriate for combat.
- Diminishing return categories will reset after 16 seconds (was 18 seconds).
- Creatures will no longer be immune to stun effects after 3 applications of the effect. The duration of the stun effect will continue to diminish in half upon each application, until they reach 1/16th duration, where it will remain until 16 seconds have passed.
- In PvP combat, players will be fully immune to a crowd control category after 2 casts (was 3).
The (second) biggest beef I’ve had with PvP (outside of buff/debuff/ability complexity) is the mountainous amount of CC/soft-CC in PvP. This complexity, I’ve argued, is what makes the game entirely unplayable for new players, and for the best players it makes it far too complicated to feel enjoyable. Beyond this, the Arena matches as an E-sport (if we insist…) is mostly unwatchable given the over complexity.
Something I feel needs saying is that it’s really a breath of fresh air having more than just occasional PvP damage-based-balance changes (and by occasional, I mean like once a season, maybe). I would love to see more of Blizzard not being afraid to continue to tweak diminishing returns going into the future as new class changes occur.
Whenever hot-new PvE-minded talents are released players have a whole host of abilities to help 'wrangle trash mobs in dungeons, or provide as an essential strategy in Raids. Yet, as we’ve seen a proliferation of CC and class utility, this has all bled into PvP in an unsettling way, and it seems like PvP has always been an afterthought, where Blizzard will eventually apply triage to help. Is there a better way forward, where PvP can be more independant from future PvE-minded changes? I’ve suggested independent talent trees where a far more trimmed tree is available for PvP, but I understand this would take time.
The two-pronged approach now, where not only are diminishing returns are being tuned but class complexity and bloat are being toned down, are improvements (somewhat indirectly) on PvP. These changes feel incredibly soft, slow, and patient and definitely help! Yet, I’m excited for some future bold and large change where even PvE players might want to give the new system another chance. Opinions diverge at this point, but I think the best representation of PvP in MMO’s are large-scale battles, epic wars where nothing is off the table. I invite Blizzard to (in the future) create something like this, where lag doesn’t nuke every computer when we have more than x3 frost mages, and we can defend Orgrimar or something from the Alliance or something just… big and epic.
That’s all, basically I just really appreciate these changes and taking the feedback surrounding PvP frustrations. It’s unlikely that the first itteration of this will be perfect, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.
One other small thing where there could be seperation:
- If a PvPer wants to use the catalyst for early 4-set, they won’t have those charges for PvE gear. Is there a way to seperate the system where PvPers could not have to “sacrafice” PvE upgrades, or earn the use of it for just PvP gear? Perhaps we make PvP-gear set bonus’s only active in warmode/PvP instances to prevent disruption to PvE gearing? There’s gotta’ be some creative solution
Edit:
Just read this post, and loving the philosphy here. Mount looks pretty cool too Would love to see more ground-mounts for PvP given that’s the primary area where they are used nowadays, but looking good!