I assume he made a typo, because he just argued against his own point lol
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People just haaaad to have some changes though didn’t they. Everyone labored under the delusion that blizzard would change what they wanted to be changed. But thats not what blizzard does. Blizzard changes what Blizzard thinks should be changed and thats it.
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It doesn’t. Competition is good for the game. It is less fun knowing that just anyone can obtain everything. It makes all my time and effort meaningless. If they want it to be that easy they may as well just put vendors in shatt and give the gear away.
My crap geared rogue won a mirror matchup on the prepatch against a naxx geared rogue with kingsfall. Skill is more important than gear always… just play better.
Original TBC system…
Arena Points
Unfortunately the effort is much longer for the PvP items due to how little of the currency you get each week. To compare it to PvE, it would be like requiring 150-375 badges of justice to obtain a piece of gear. With each heroic only able to be done once a day, your weekly badge income is capped and takes a long time to build up.
Season 1
Season 1 was introductory for people. Tier 4 gear was easily obtainable and accessible to everyone at 70 who wanted to PvE. The difference in gear level this early in the game was extremely little because the game just came out and there was only prebis and tier 4 really.
Season 2
Season 2 was when raiding got harder. Tier 5 gear was obtainable in SSC/TK and we had S2 and Badge gear equivalents that required the same effort as they did for the introductory gear.
Two major issues came out of this era. Remember how Arena points were really slow to get? Well people just cobbled together points for MONTHS and upon hearing the new gear was coming out, they simply held onto them. When Season 2 came out, BAM instant T5 equivalent weapons. Same idea with Badges of Justice happened too, people saved up a TON of badges and just got everything the moment it came out.
PvE players who raided current content were confused why their efforts yielded equivalent gear to people who saved up arena points from Season 1 or cleared heroics everyday. Season 2 was the start of the phrase “Welfare Epics” when current tier equivalent gear (Season 2) was possible to people using the same effort as Introductory Gear (Season 1).
Season 3
For Season 3 they decided to change the system as gear strength vastly changed when compared to Introductory gear (Season 1). A PvP metric was added to Weapons as they were the biggest upgrade and Shoulders as they were the flashiest gear piece for most tiers. At the same time there was no longer a need to require Arena points for the introductory gear, so the requirements were downgraded to Honor points.
The idea behind the change was to roughly award the gear pieces over time to PvP players at about the same rate as PvE players were clearing current tier content. At this time that was BT/Hyjal.
Season 4
Season 4 added more PvP metrics to more pieces as gear strength was becoming VERY strong even for non-weapon slots. Since current tier content had lower participation and success, the goal was to increase the rating requirements for the gear to match the rough percentage of guilds clearing the current content (Sunwell).
That’s the history of Original TBC’s arena system and why they added rating req
Now I know what you are thinking, whatever happened to Badge gear? Badge gear continued to get stronger as time went, but the requirements got easier…not harder.
The welfare epics discussion continued into WotLK exclusively pointing out badge gear, especially when T6/Sunwell equivalent gear was obtainable.
Basically badges in WotLK were changed to different tier levels, usually one for current content and ones for older tiers/introductory content. As a new season and tier happens, the current badges are downgraded to the lower badge tier and the older gear requirements are also downgraded in the requirements also.
TLDR - Ideally, rating requirements for top rewards should have a metric that reflects balance similar to the effort needed to obtain a PvE weapon.
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That’s great. What happens when 90% of the arena bracket drops out because they’re not a top 1% player for shoulders or a 3% player for a weapon? Right they’ll just PVE and get free gear in T4.
Have fun with Shadowlands v2 where the 2’s bracket is nothing but boosts from Faerlina and Whitemane and even 3’s is dead.
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Why would 90% drop out for that reason lol… the whole point of playing is to improve over time and raise your rating over time… everyone will have the hope of improving and one day getting rewards.
Also, arena is FUN… unlike aq40. So people will do it even when they don’t need any gear from it.
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When the gear isn’t close to equivalent in difficulty or the carrot is dangled too high you get dead seasons. I’m not talking about the people who will play no matter what, I’m talking about the people who WOULD play but now won’t.
Season 4 in original TBC for example was completely dead. Some bgs Rank 1’s were below 2200 and couldnt even get their shoulders.
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I honestly don’t care. I’d rather just play matches against people that love pvp all day instead of playing randoms that don’t try their best every other match.
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The rating change effects practically no one. It effects like 10% of the arena population and since arena is only played by like 4-6% of the overall player population, we’re talking about 0.4% to 0.6% of players are legitimately effected by the change.
[3000 — 2800 — 2500 — 2200 — 2000] — 1800 —[1500 — 1300 — 1000 — 0]
<— None of these people are effected __________ None of these people are effected -->
Point 1) The people that were going to be above 2000 or so rating are going to get their weapons with or without this change. They’ll have Gladiator weapons in about 3-6 weeks whether there is a rating requirement or not.
Point 2) The people that were going to be 1500 rating in arena or lower were never going to get their weapons (at a relevant time*) even before this change. These people are delusional if they look at this rating requirement and go “aww shucks, now I can’t get a weapon”. Dude, you were going to wallow at 1340 the entire season. It was going to be four MONTHS before your FIRST PURHCASE was that weapon. In 4 months you’ll get an epic weapon from a Heroic dungeon, a raid or a craftsman that will almost entirely obviate the Gladiator weapon you were never going to get in a relevant time frame anyway. 250 points and a week for 3750 points? Go away.
Point 3) This change ultimately has the largest impact on the 1800-1900 rated players. Those are the people that WERE going to be able to generate enough points to buy a weapon in about 4-6 weeks but now will have the points but not the rating. This is the ONLY demographic of prospective arena players that this change impacts. And guess what? That’s a small slice. Going by BFA and Shadowlands numbers, less than 4% of all arena players ended the season(s) between 1800-1900 rating. And less than 2% of all Shadowlands players have engaged in arena. We’re talking about microfractions of microfractions of players. But, fair enough, these people are being screwed by the change. There are practically none of them, but the ones that exist have every right to be pissed.
With those three points I contend that 90% or more of prospective arena players have not been remotely impacted by the 2050 rating requirement change. The people on top it doesn’t effect and the people on bottom it doesn’t effect. What I find most amusing is that there has been a huge outpouring of hate regarding the chance that is wildly disproportionate to the number of people legitimately effected. I can only presume it’s a bunch of “forever 1300” morons that were never going to get the weapon (in a reasonably timeframe) that are now upset their illusion of acquisition has been dispelled.
It reminds me of those impoverished conservatives living in trailer parks that are upset when the government raises taxes on households above $400,000 annual income. Like, why are you mad? That’s not you. That’ll never be you. But they are like convinced they’re “temporarily inconvenienced millionaires” and the tax increase will flatten them “once they make it there”.
TL:DR - 4% of 2% of people are being screwed out a weapon. Most of the crying is coming from people that were never going to have one (in a reasonable amount of time) anyway and it will be non-rated in S2, about the time they would have bought it even before the change.
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This simply isn’t true, regardless of rating, you want a healthy pool of players, good and bad. And less average players will bother to play.
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How are you so bad at math that you made that long winded paragraph that explained nothing?
When 90% of the pvp bracket drops out just like it did with shadowlands you’ll still have the same % of players getting shoulders and weapon. Instead of having 100,000 people playing arena you have 10,000. You went from 1000 people getting shoulders and 3000 people getting a weapon to 100 people getting shoulders and 300 getting weapons.
When the bottom drop out the top nose dive as well. Congrats you just killed the entire season just like Shadowlands.
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It’s a pretty long post with numerous points and you just respond “This isn’t true”. What part? The part about 2000+ rated players being unaffected? The part about 1300 rated players being essentially unaffected? The part about the disproportionate outrage? The part about the loss of participation coming from the dispelling of an illusion of acquisition?
If people decide “screw it, I won’t even bother” in response to this change, and they were never going to get above 1500 or so anyway, then they’re idiots. In the 4 months it WOULD HAVE taken them to get a weapon they’d have quit or gotten a replacement anyway. It actually doesn’t affect them at all in any real sense.
The explanation is fine. It’s just an uncomfortable truth that will either be misunderstood or senseless hated by 99% of people on this forum.
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You will at high ratings so what does the bottom playing games for 2 -3 months for a weapon matter to you exactly? Unless you think you’ll be there with them.
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I’m not talking about whether a 1500 rated player had a chance to get a weapon, I’m talking about less players actively q’ing arena, effects anyone that plays arena
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But that’s literally the heart of this problem. People are “giving up” on arena now because of a rating requirement that isn’t going to impact them. They were never getting a weapon. They still aren’t. They’re “quitting” because now it’s obvious and before they could lie to themselves.
By the way, I completely agree with you guys when you say this will crush participation. I have posted A LOT about the negative feedback loop that this change will have on participation numbers. It’s going to blow out the bottom of the pyramid for sure.
That’s not what I’m saying here.
What I’m saying is that the VAST majority of people that are going to abandon arena because of the weapon rating change were never going to get a weapon during the season even before the change. They’re leaving because their illusion has been dispelled. A carrot on a stick they were never going to nibble is now more obviously out of their reach.
Here’s a post from a week ago I wrote about the participation issues:
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Yes they will. You cannot be blind to what happened in even TBC to the rating changes.
The S4 requirements that they enacted on ALL seasons completely killed Arena participation when TBC was live.
When the equivalent PVE gear is miles easier to obtain you have no arena participation. When the carrot is dangled too high you have no arena participation.
Here’s the thing though. I have zero issue with S4 ratings being tied to Sunwell. Very few guilds managed to complete sunwell and very few people managed to get 2050 and 2200 in S4.
That will not be the case in S1 where nearly 100% of all guilds will completely melt T4 content. Why bother with Arena when it’s 100x harder than raiding. They need to be equal or one side dies.
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See above. I agree that this change will crush arena participation. That’s not the discussion. The discussion is whether or not people are being morons about it.
I want as many people playing as possible. The high rating requirements will ensure that’s not the case. I just want original TBC, to play with my arena team AND with irl friends who aren’t as good.
At least with the old system you could save up points for 2-3 months and get your 2H weapon. Now my friends who don’t really arena won’t even bother and that’s what upsets me.
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