How do the arena changes 'kill' casual arenas?

[Stonecastle-herod]

@Bearyalln-tichondrius

Yeah I got pretty sick of trying to explain it to people

I could literally fill the rest of this thread out with quotes from me, you, ZinQ etc. That’s how dead this horse is.

For funsies, I can answer the literal OP question with a quote from a week ago →

@Conarch-grobbulus

Could someone please explain to me why people are mad about the tbc arena changes, and whther it’s rational to be mad about?

@Stonecastle-herod

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.