Hello everyone.
As always when I post, this will be a long winded post, but I will add a TL:DR, with an in depth explanation after to describe why I would like to see these changes in cata.
<Skip if too long, didn’t read>
Also, since some people do care about this, i have achieved 2655 rating in the past(This toon), 2400 currently in Wrath classic (Alphoncejr) and have gotten the duelist title (top 3%) atleast once, in almost every expansion. Some of these changes do not effect me at all, like removing or lowering the rating requirement on gear, as i will always get it, if i should desire so.
TL:DR
1. Introduce Catch up cap similar to that of Warlord of Draenor.
2. Reduce the rating requirement of the Tier 2 elite weapon to 1600 (or 0) from 2200.
3. Keep the same rating requirements for the cosmetic Tier 2 elite armor.
4. Fix the looking for group finder to allow arena specific listing, as well as introduce alliance and horde arena q’ing.
As it stands right now, the biggest issue in my opinion is the population regarding WoW arena. It’s no surprise, as it’s always been small, but the population has never been this small. There are roughly under 30,000 players in the 3v3 bracket. With such a small population, this allows some teams to face the same team over and over and over again even at low ratings of 2,000.
It is my speculation that in order to increase the population pool, there needs to be some changes that won’t fundamentally ruin the game, or destroy what it is inherently about, but rather help alleviate some of the barriers that are no longer a viable option considering the pool of players is close to non-existent.
Point One
The first, and again, in my opinion, the biggest step to help players participate in arena, and maybe even Rated BattleGrounds at this point, is to allow players to miss a week or two without severe punishment.
I don’t think the average player minds that they have to do arena to get arena points, or in cataclysm, conquest points. However, sometimes real life happens, and people can miss a week. Sometimes two. As well if someone wants to play alts, sometimes the alt comes into the picture later.
With the reintroduction of the WoD catch up cap, this will help reduce burnout from playing every week. This will help people try alts, as well. The reason why this is important is because once people feel like they are falling behind, people tend to quit. The struggle to win arenas is already a big barrier if you start late or a new alt. Compounding that with the fact that you are artificially kept from obtaining gear since it’s locked to a weekly grind makes even trying once behind not worth the time or effort.
For those who are unaware of how WoD Catch up cap worked, i’ll to my best to break it down to the best of my memory.
Week 1 would have an overall cap of I believe 1650. With 300 of that having to be obtained by running RBGs. If you missed week 1, the second week would have an overall cap of 2650. So every week, you were guaranteed 1000 points added to the catch up cap, assuming you missed playing that week, or didn’t get the full cap. If you did manage to cap, then you would not receive that additional 1000 points to earn.
It was obviously more impactful to cap every week. 1650 points is a lot more than just a measly 1000 points, comparatively speaking. However, after so many weeks missed, it was reasonable to actually get geared, as well as to compete with everyone else. This meant that an alt coming late, or someone who had to take a break, or returning at a later time, would still have to arena to earn the points, but also had a chance to compete for titles by time the season ended. They were not permanently behind until the next season started.
Point two.
PvP is fundamentally different from PvE. This means that PvP has different problems from PvE. This means that the solutions for PvP are most likely going to be different than PvE solutions.
Everyone understands that in an MMO, you must grind. There’s no way around it. I’m personally someone who thinks there should absolutely be no grinding to do PvP, but that hasn’t come true once in the time i’ve played this game on and off since ‘09. So i understand that the players, and community at large, agree almost unanimously, that there must be a grind.
With that said, rating requirements are a bit different than grinding. Rating requirements on gear allows good players to get better gear, and then play against average or new players in a different arena bracket or BGs with not only a skill advantage, but also a gear advantage.
This causes a rift between the haves, and the have nots. The have nots experience a wide discrepancy of game play. Sometimes the difference in stats is why you might die in a cheap shot, kidney shot, smoke bomb combo without trinket, where someone who has more stats from their t2 weapon might have the extra resilience, and stamina to survive.
So lowering the requirements does two things. It allows more of the player pool to achieve these weapons, and gives them a goal to look forward to.
It also allows there to be less of a gear discrepancy in general, and makes newer or average players a chance to compete since 1600 is a reasonable rank. I would argue 1600 is probably the rank of gold in overwatch, or starcraft. With a little patience and dedication, anyone can achieve this rank.
Point 3
As far as the 2200 tier 2 elite armor, since it’s purely cosmetic, it’s fine for it to remain at 2200. This allows players who have played the game, gotten alright at the game a goal as well. Doing the same thing as wrath tabards do.
There’s a lot of players, like myself, who played wrath mostly just for the tabards alone. Cosmetics are cool, fun, and a good reason for a lot of players to play.
Point 4
The LFG tool is just awful. Terrible. One of the worst things I’ve seen in a while that was supposed to help. Seriously, it’s beyond garbage. I really don’t understand how it could get this bad. Whoever did the rework of it clearly doesn’t care about the player base.
There’s no arena section. You can not see what classes are in a group, unless you do a role select, and because that part is never explained to people, an overwhelming majority of people are unaware, too lazy, or don’t care to do that. As well as because the classic community is so small, alliance and horde should be able to que arena’s with each other.
We already have Alliance vs Alliance and horde vs horde BGs. Allow the few of us arena players to actually play the game. Finding people is a real nightmare because we simply do not have the tools to do so.
I firmly believe that if some, hopefully all changes were implemented in cata, we would see more people playing the game. I would love to try playing resto shaman or disc priest as an alt, but if i miss one week, i might as well stop playing those alts all entirely cause i’m just trying to play for fun, on as close to an even playing field as possible, with random and possibly new future friends. But right now, it’s hard to find people to play with, and it’s pointless to play alts if i didn’t invest in them literally weekly.
Edit: They should also update dalaran sewers to have stairs on all 4 corners, as well as blades edge having ramps in the middle like it is on retail.
As it stands right now, the maps are terribly one sided for certain comps and play a greater impact on the outcome of the game than what they should be allowed to do.