-> Feedback thread with the goal of increasing Arena Participation in Classic expansions! <-

WoW Classic Mists of Pandaria Classic Discussion
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This is a copied post from the EU forums. I am not the orginal author of this post.

Minpojke is the original author of this post but since people from NA can not comment on the EU forums, I decided to post it here as well.

Original tweet.
https://x.com/Minpojke_/status/1896355175134310629

Hey guys!

I’ve taken on the task to create a huge feedback thread on things that both me and the community wants to see change with the goal of increasing Arena PvP participation in upcoming Classic expansions.

I’m a fan of the game and I’ve been playing it for 20 years with Classic being my main focus since the release of TBC. I stream Classic Arenas and have the unique possibility to interact with the Arena Community on a daily and I would consider myself to have a well educated opinion on what would be good for the game mode.

I have good knowledge as I’ve played at the very top of the PvP leaderboards for 15 years straight and I’ve had wide success in both AWC & CAT tournaments since 2013. I probably have some of the most Arenas played in the entire world so hopefully that qualifies me as a person that knows what I’m talking about.

This post will be long because I want to be elaborative. I’m passionate about Arenas and I’ve never seen somebody with influence in the community making a post similar to this so instead of me ranting about that “they don’t care about PvP” I’m now trying to be the change that I want to see.

I also want to highlight that this is OUR thread and I want to encourage every single one of you to say your piece about what you think of my suggestions in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner but also what changes YOU would like to see.

I’ve gotten a promise from the Classic Devs that they will read this post and monitor the thread so if you want your voice to be heard then this is our chance, and if you like what I’m suggesting then make sure you communicate that because they wanted me to post on the forums to see what you guys think as well.

Here’s my suggestions:

Two things that I think MUST change.

End of Season Rewards (Titles) returned for 2v2 and 5v5 Arenas:

Before Cataclysm Classic came out the higher-end of PvP players vouched for titles to be removed from 2v2 and 5v5 in order to encourage more people to play 3v3 “the skilled bracket that the game is balanced around” and this turned out to be a great mistake because it’s a change that’s only appealing for the higher-end players but more discouraging for the casual players that has a harder time finding dedicated partners for 3v3 and in this day and age, what truly is the downside to not allowing titles from each bracket? It’s ONLY positive because people love rewards and to have a carrot to chase, and in this case - end of season rewards.

Dampening to start earlier:

Dampening is introduced in MoP and I believe it’s on a 10 minute timer? In the 2v2 bracket this literally feels like a lifetime. The nature of 2v2 is slower paced so I think it’s very important that dampening kicks in after 3 minutes in the 2v2 bracket otherwise you run around with the feeling of that the game hasn’t started until dampening has kicked in and the average player is good enough for games to literally not end without the help of dampening in this bracket. I think a 5 minute timer for 3v3 is appropriate since it’s more action-packed and if two teams play well, the game will go to dampening and that’s fine.

This can single-handedly be the most impactful custom change.

Custom slots for End of Season Reward Titles:

This means that instead of having the traditional 0.1% of the ladder obtaining Rank One Gladiator and the top 0.5% obtaining Gladiator I think there should be a SET amount of spots available per bracket that is eligible for titles and an example of this could be that the top 100 of each bracket will be eligible for Rank One Gladiator and top 250 is eligible for Gladiator.

These goals are reachable for the average player and it would greatly encourage them to play and practice PvP. If you use Cataclysm s10 as an example, only 8 people were eligible for Rank One Gladiator and when people see that then they realize it’s too far out of reach so they don’t bother playing in the first place.

I personally really like this idea and it’s been discussed for months in the Classic Arena Community and I guarantee that it would make a lot more people PvP.

If that doesn’t sound like a good idea then I’d like to propose the Retail Gladiator system where people above 2400 Rating with 50 wins earns Gladiator but the issue with this is that people wait until the MMR has inflated, which means they start late into the season when it’s easier to climb rating and then they grind out their Gladiator title and stop there because there’s no incentive to keep going. The next goal is too far out of reach as the jump from Gladiator to Rank One Gladiator with this system is usually a rating difference between 600-800 while on the contrary if you have custom spots then it’s realistic to reach as the rating difference between Gladiator and Rank One Gladiator is usually between 100-200 rating and you can achieve that by networking, practicing and building team chemistry throughout the season to ensure that they’re a contender for End of Season Rewards and that’s what Arenas should be about in my opinion.

Individuals not taking up several spots:

Something retail does well with the End of Season Rewards is that a Player despite having X amount of characters eligible for the End of Season Rewards till counts as one opposed to taking up five slots if he has five characters eligible. This is a great system and an absolute no-brainer, Classic should adopt it!

PvP Power on s12 Gear:

The s12 PvP gear doesn’t have PvP Power on it and this might cause a huge imbalance. I’d encourage adding it.

Solo Shuffle/Support System:

Finding partners for Arena is one of the biggest issues and obstacles that people are facing today. People spend hours in LFG searching for a teammate just to be met by people lying about their Arena experience and general toxicity and impatience.
The “solution” to this is usually people saying “Just add Solo Shuffle to Classic” and while Solo Shuffle increases participation in PvP (Retail is evidence of that) it usually means people stop trying to play the other brackets just because it’s easier to queue Solo. I’m not against Solo Shuffle but I think creating a system to help people finding teammates would be a much better solution and especially if you’re going with my suggestion of returning titles to 2v2 and 5v5 as well as adding a set amount of spots for End of Season Rewards.

Unfortunately I don’t have a good idea of what a system like that could look like but returning the PvP tab to LFG would be a good start and have that be cross-realm. Why was it even randomly removed in the first place in WoTLK?

Keep in mind that adding Solo Shuffle to Classic would also mean a lot more work and the necessity to come up with new titles and from what I understand, we don’t have the luxury to have that many resources provided for PvP.

Cross faction Arenas:

In my opinion we should introduce every Quality of Life change that would increase PvP participation. Why not allow for cross faction queueing? MoP is a more modern expansion and I think it would be a great change. (Mercenary Mode?)

MMR inflation from the start:

There’s nothing more discouraging for players to feel like you’re not progressing because MMR inflation doesn’t exist from the start or it’s not influential enough. When you’re playing Arenas it should feel like you’re making progress and seeing your rating go up, it’s validating and fun. We’ve seen both on Retail and Classic what happens when there’s no inflation, the average player ends up facing Rank One Gladiators on their usual MMR and that’s discouraging and makes them not want to play because they want to be matched against people within their skill group. This also makes the average player not play until later into the season when the higher rated players are finally within their own MMR range.

On retail we’ve also seen it taking weeks or even months for some of the best players in the world to obtain Gladiator and that’s not a good thing. If it takes that long for some of the best, then what chance does the average player stand? We don’t need to see crazy inflation to the point where people get 3800 rating by the end of the season but it should be there from the beginning and gradually increase.

Disable Class Stacking in Arena:

Class stacking should be disabled for the same reason double healer compositions isn’t allowed. It promotes stale and lame gameplay and for the most part it’s overpowered. Double Rogue compositions in TBC and WoTLK are good examples of this or Double Healer X compositions in both WoTLK and Cataclysm. By the way, you’re still able to respec inside of Arenas in Cataclysm which makes people able to play double healer.

Random side note:

One of the biggest issues in Classic has been that we’ve had to PvE in order to collect our PvP BiS and thankfully that problem goes away with MoP so that change alone is going to encourage a lot more people to play, including people from retail that is already used to a good gearing system because that was likely a big discouragement for them.

Thank you for reading and once again I want to emphasize the importance of discussing everything in a friendly and constructive manner whether you agree with me or not. If we’re being negative and hateful towards each other or the developers then how could we expect them to listen?

Let’s work together and show that we’re a strong and passionate community that is worthy of having our game mode cared for.

Much love guys,
Jon/Minpojke

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“The versions of the game I dominate arena on are incredibly dead, let’s propose some huge system changes that go beyond #somechanges, many which don’t even exist in retail arena today
so that I can continue with my self-serving interest of dominating and/or sell RMT glad carries” (conveniently he leaves part of that out, notice his change on fixed title slots).

I don’t think the man realizes that classic wow arena is just not good. People do not want to play incredibly solved decade+ old versions of the game (this is also not adding the fact that arena in general is not popular). Retail arena is NOT perfect, but
TBC-MoP there are massive design failures and issues that simply don’t exist on retail. Not to mention PvE gear in half of those expacs which is heavily unfavoured amongst arena-only players.
These are just a few of the many reasons why people don’t bother with classic arena. Most retail arena players dislike it heavily even if they played it back when it was current content.

Classic arena population is in the toilet for a reason, folks, and has been since Wrath, minimum. If it was fun, people would play it, just as they are doing so with raids and other activities in classic wow.

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MoP arena does not require any PvE gear whatsoever to play. It is fully focused on having PvP gear as you have PvP Power instead of resilience.

The pace of MoP is also way different from Retail. Retail is way burstier and plays way different. As in, CC does not matter in retail to the same extent as it does for the older ones.

I believe more people would play if it was more accessible for people. MoP is a highly anticipated and wanted expansion, both for it’s PvP and PvE, hands down one of the best expansions imo.

He states that he has gotten the task from the classic devs to make this post, to see how the scene looks and how many is wanting changes.

Everyone is more than welcome to post what they believe should be changed, he states his opinion and that’s all.

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I think some of those changes would be good. Solo Shuffle would definitely add to the numbers. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt.

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You know what else killed the ladder for years and killed the integrity of the game?

Pilots and carries

Which the man who wrote this post gladly did many over the years of him playing this game.

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Yep, called that out above and the community council person decides to ignore everything and say “well in MoP you don’t need pve gear xD” meanwhile minpoj was also targetting tbc anniversary+. Like cool, one expansions where you finally don’t need PvE gear at all but all the other called out issues are still there…yeah ill totally play it.

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I didn’t ignore it. I felt like it wasn’t needed to be adressed. But I’ll adress it, all good!

Also, I’m not sure why it says I am still council, I guess they forgot to remove the “title”.

He did recieve a AWC ban for RMT back in Legion or BFA, can’t remember when.

I can’t guarantee it doesn’t happen anymore and that goes for every single pro player in this game because I don’t watch them when they aren’t streaming.

Even if he was banned for RMT, his points are still valid. You don’t have to like him, not at all. And you’re all free to state your opinions.

To Stenze, facing people who pilot and/or carry is a very few amounts of game you play, unless you are in a high bracket.

If the person who is getting carried/piloted wants Glad, he still wont be facing the same people over and over and destroy their experiance.
If they are in R1 bracket, it’s basically “normal” games.

You will never be able to do anything about carry. This is the cause in majority of competative games, same goes for League, CS, Dota and so on. There will always be smurf and that can never be controlled.

However, a bigger playerbase will reduce the chance of getting to play against one.

Feel free to make your opinions heard on the tweet as well, if you want to make an opinion directly towards him.

I’m just a messanger.

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if classic arena was fun it would have the playerbase that Minj desires. It is not fun. While that is subjective, ill state from facts.

People don’t want to do arena in an old iteration of the game, especially if they already played it when it was current content

People don’t want to play arena against people who have been playing that iteration of the game on private servers when everyone else has moved from it

People don’t want to play arena in iterations where PvE gear is required, where only a subset of the specs are viable, or where gameplay is much clunkier, or where there are insanely broken interactions/design.

Classic arena is very very niche, and what he’s proposing are massive changes.

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If I remember correctly, you can buy starter blue resilience gear with justice points and they can be sold on the AH. 450ish item level if I recall.

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Blizzard if you are monitoring this NA post too. PLEASE FIX CROSS SERVER LFG. This has been in the game since the start of cata and maybe even wrath? Dragon Soul Patch made cross server lfg not work. This is directly affecting the PVP scene and finding partners cross server. This has dramatically affected player participation in this season and it has nothing to do with rewards or game systems. It is purely the LFG tool not being cross server anymore making it much harder to find partners, if any at all.

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PLEASE fix this, how is this even happening

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First and absolute foremost, re-enable Cross-Realm LFG!

I have previously made an extremely important post regarding PvP as a whole and I dug into the root of the Rated PvP problems which is lack of WPvP. Please take a look below:

TLDR; Without WPvP with an active, healthy, and balanced PvP server, Rated PvP will continue to suffer.

EDIT: TLDR; if you don’t want to read the entire post I made… Pretty much ONE mega PvP server that’s balanced will keep all aspects of PvP alive and thriving. That solves all issues regarding servers dying, people losing interest in PvP, people wanting free x-fers, etc.

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Pilots and carries will always be in WoW no matter what and this has been a thing since day 1 of arenas.
Either play better than them or lose your spot on the ladder.
There is really not much that can actually be done about it besides Blizzard being harsher on bans but this still doesn’t stop someone from paying to play with 2 r1/tournament players and getting carried through a selfplay.

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Before I put my comments, a side note:
Its a bit of a shame that a few here in the NA-version of this post are trying to spin this post from being helpful into being a talk about RMT & calling Classic/Arena “trash”, despite there being A LOT of proof from Classic TBC to now that many people enjoy Classic Arena’s & just want to see certain tools implemented so it can reach the potential that I, & many others know it can.

Now onto the feedback. (Longer post, my intention is to be articulate)

  • “End of Season Rewards (Titles) returned for 2v2 & 5v5 Arenas”:

Im against this.
In TBC 2s admittingly had some moments of surgency, but in MoP (despite the stigma of MoP being very balanced, which IS true) 2s/5s are a lot less balanced/fun/competitive than 3s, and id hate to see 3v3 activity hindered all in the name of brackets that are frankly inferior to 3v3 in these regards.

A middle-ground that id be on board with is having Gladiator now be available in 2s & 5s, but NOT R1 title. This would still encourage activity & competition in 2s/5s without taking away the main draw from 3v3 & the competition that goes along with it.

  • “Dampening to start earlier”:

Agree, however im under the impression that in MoP dampening starts at 5min already?
Maybe leave 2v2 dampening to start at 5mins over making it 3mins if there’s concerns of earlier dampening shaping the 2s meta in an unexpected & undesirable way?

  • “Custom slots for End of Season Reward Titles”:

Agreed with custom slots.
However, regarding gladiator being 2400+50wins, I disagree with this one. Mostly for the same concerns Minpojke already expressed himself in his post, & I think an improved LFG system & a static amount of spots for glad/r1 is a better solution.

  • “Individuals not taking up several spots”:
    Agreed.
  • “PvP Power on S12 Gear”:

Agreed. However I am under the impression that S12 Conquest gear already has PvP power, and that only the honor gear is the one without it, but I can’t 100% confirm.

I will say, theres an importance to making sure its already on the gear because a big draw for players interested in MoP PvP is the fantastic gameplay & also the fact that PvP gear is the best in PvP, as it should be - with pve being optional rather than obligational, as it should be.

  • “Solo Shuffle/Support System”:

I dislike Shuffle, & I know that many resources would likely be required to maintain Shuffle. I’d rather see resources go towards improving Networking/LFG tools to enhance the experience for the 2s/3s/5s brackets (as Minpojke said) - which I feel would take a fraction of the resources for likely a better outcome.

I’m not a fan of Shuffle & even feel its a step worse than returning 2s/5s titles, with the tldr being that it takes away from other brackets & prioritizes convenience rather than much quality. WoW Arena has always been unique & a big reason is the team aspect, seeing a team rise & show off what they’ve learned together is BiS.
Shuffle feels very opposing to this ideal & in my opinion, promotes many opposite ideals of what WoW Arena has always been about.

A couple idea’s for Networking/LFG improvements:

  1. Return the PvP tab, & allow players to filter classes, experiences, & expectations.
  2. Perhaps a Cross-Server/Faction PvP ingame Chat for additional networking?
  3. Tournaments like the CAT (Classic Arena Tournament) program, but more consistently. Perhaps quarterly? With vanity rewards such as Vanquisher title from TBCC, or classic-version of the Flag toy. Plus advertisement of sorts maybe through battlenet app or an ingame npc.
    (Even if prize pool is lower than the normal CAT’s, it’d still be fun/effective to see IMO).
  4. Support for more community-based tournaments.
  • “Cross faction Arenas”:
    Agreed.
  • “MMR inflation from the start”:
    Agreed.
  • “Disable Class Stacking in Arena”:

Agreed, albeit a more minor issue to me in the grand scheme of things.

I 100% agree with banning Double Healer & triple DPS. These comps are nothing but an attempt to cheese the game in a boring & unskillful way & often breeds a lot of toxicity.

Overall a great post & great points from Minpojke, all of which I agree with & hope get implemented.
(Other than 2s/5s titles idea. However, again, I can accept a compromise there with allowing Gladiator in those brackets & leaving R1 title exclusive to 3s, this is a sort of best-of-all worlds situation, imo)

MoP is my favorite xpac, & my friends & I are excited to revisit this xpac. Myself & many in the classic pvp community know of the potential that MoP Arena has for a resurgence for PvP, & these changes would make giant strides in achieving that goal.

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I think you are asking a lot for a 5000 people dead game. (30k-40k logins across all servers…logins, i.e. one player may have alts + bank alts counting more multiple logins).

Blizzard is not going to invest any resource (money or dev/test/support) into this for a low-no return game. It is shown clearly they don’t even have resources to fix existing bugs before releasing content (e.g. DS raid green screen).

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increase honor gains by a ton, increase conquest gains by a ton… stop pretending that gating the best pvp items on rating means “prestige” when people can pay to get boosted and pretend there’s any prestige left on pvp at this point…

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not sure when everyone will realize that blizzard just runs the servers and doesn’t make changes even if they are good

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several servers are in the process of dying, SOD gets 10x the dev time while Dragon Soul and Firelands both are full of game breaking bugs, and the cc members that barely use their increased visibility post about boosting arena participation :upside_down_face:

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If classic arena was good, it wouldn’t need these crazy radical changes that Min and you folks are asking for significant changes to an old iteration of the game (that didn’t have them to begin with, nor does retail even have today for some of these asks)?? What you’re saying is almost contradictory

if it was good and many people enjoyed it, it wouldn’t need these changes to begin with.

Classic wow arena mains need to accept that arena in general is super niche in this game, even on retail, its just way worse on classic because most of the people who actually do like arena aren’t going to waste their time on solved versions of the game.

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Cant believe we are coming to 3 weeks of this BS