Thanks for taking the time to read this post, my name is Bloody. I’ve been playing wow–and pvping (badly)–for almost exactly 15 years now. I started in April 2005. This post is addressing one of the most important and dysfunctional problems to the design of World of Warcraft (imo) I’ve yet experienced, and it’s currently part of why I’ve abandoned retail in favor of Classic until 9.1. What is it? Well, in a way, it’s RBG rating inflation. But more specifically, it’s the lazy, underdeveloped RBG pvp mode and it’s Blizzard’s lack of attention to the RBG game mode concerncing balancing, reward systems, and homogenization with Arena.
People have been calling out the RBG inflation for years now and NOTHING has been done about it. And finally, it’s culminated in an epic fail on Blizzard’s part for PvP gear balancing–which is very disappointing to me personally, because the return of PvP vendors easily made this one of the best seasons I’ve experienced since Wrath of the Lich King.
I know many players are bewildered by the PvP gearing design in the game currently, and how it will be in 9.1. PvErs were up in arms and confused at how OP it seemed, and PvPers at how harsh and terrible the nerfs have been for 9.1, alongside a seemingly dissonant or out of touch development team that is divided on whether to nerf PvP rewards or buff them–I’m looking at you, ghost nerf of spider mount req.
The issue is this: Blizzard is currently approaching balancing PvP as one, massive, tied-together system. That is not how PvP is at all. There are FOUR very distinctive parts of PvP. Unrated PvP, 2v2 Rated Arenas, 3v3 Rated Arenas and RBGs (Rated Battlegrounds.) Blizzard has been trying to balance them all together–and my god, could you imagine how awful and LAZY that would be if they did this in PVE? Imagine trying to balance raid rewards and m+ rewards with one single rating system that didn’t even match the two difficulties between the content.
It’s high time we address the root cause of the RBG rating problem that has slowly crept up on us over the course of several expansions. RBG rating is irreparably inflated when compared to Arena rating and has caused very disparate rating values. Yet they still award the same titles, and hold the same rating reqs for conquest vendor gear. When will Arena and RBG rewards finally be separated and RBGs are given their own unique rewards, rating system, and NEW titles (not 16 year old copies)?
For those of you who PvE, the situation with RBGs vs Arena would be akin to a +15 M+ run rewarding the same exact thing as a normal raid (or perhaps first boss of Heroic) and on top of that, awarding even Keystone master title, same gear ilvl, and mount rewards would also be given for doing that raid instead. In short, RBG rating vs arena rating are currently not comparable enough to hold the same rewards and gear ilvl. This is exactly why blizzard decided to kill PvP gearing–a lazy decision compared to finally separating RBG rewards from Arena or addressing the inflation.
I make no illusions that this season of PvP and it’s gearing system was particularly hard for me. My team and I got 1800 the first week of Shadowlands and 2100 the second and we are amateur pvper’s at best (this was in 2’s running double dps ret/fire.) However… there are a large amountof people who struggle getting even 1400 or 1600 in Arena, too. However, those same people could hop into some RBG groups every night for about a week and easily get almost 1800 with enough attempts. Blizzard, I’m begging you, here. PvP was incredibly fun for me this season… and a huge part of that was because my Arena gear felt earned! Rolling around in 226 gear having gotten 2100 on the second week felt amazing! But, I absolutely see how being a PvEr it did not feel amazing to be out-dps’d by a pvper in gear that would’ve still been months away from the average raider’s hands.
After all, how could someone who never pvps begin to understand how AWFUL the RBG rating inflation was? How do you explain to someone that getting gear through arena was deserved while getting it through that RBG’s was less so? And moreover, how do you prove this without insulting the entire RBG community? Well, we can start with at least some numbers.
These are all easily looked up straight from the armory–the highest 2s rating right now is about 2800, with 3s at 3300, and RBGs at over 3050. This tells you IMMEDIATELY that these three different types of rated content are several reward tiers of rating different, for at least the ceiling of the content.
So, why is this really a problem? After all, it appears that 3’s is the most inflated type of content, right? Well, no, not exactly.
Here’s another number we know of right now: the average rating for BOTH 2v2 and 3v3 arena is roughly 1100-1200, between all players. 3’s is always higher at the ceiling than 2’s is because it is required for the gladiator mount, so beyond 2k, things begin to inflate quite a bit as all of the best pvpers in the world compete for the title of Rank 1. For RBG’s however, the average rating is much higher for the average player, closer to 1400-1600.
This is A HUGE difference. For the average player, RBGs are far more inflated.
So, why is this the case? Well, something has long plagued the RBG community with no real fix to the issue, in large part because RBGs have such a smaller player pool engaging in RBGs compared to Arenas. So, players intentionally are able to “queue-into” other teams on purpose for the silent gain of win-trading. Even still, when this doesn’t occur, teams just end up queueing into the same four or five teams over and over until the rating continually inflates. Consequently, the rest of the lower end of the spectrum tends to follow as winning an RBG grants you not a dozen points, but upwards of 100 per win.
Now, it’s a very gradual, incremental increase, but over the course of several expansions, the inflation has made a very serious problem for pvp because all of these different types of content award blanket gear at set rating values. WoW is the only game I know that prides itself on the quality of it’s pvp…and yet has the exact same reward system and rating requirement for three different realms of rated competitive content with absolutely zero compensation for inflation, player pool, or average rating.
We need less ghost hotfixes, less reward and gear “tuning” and more OVERHAULING of the Pvp rating and reward systems–which has been OVERDUE for years. More specifically a remedy to the homogenization of RBGs and Arena rewards/ratings, and perhaps even a fluctuating rating requirement that is based off of SEPERATE algorithms rather than blind-dart throwing blanket reqs that pay no heed to inflation.
For those unsure what any of this means to the gearing situation–currently Arena and RBGs share rating rewards, e.g. gear, titles, mounts (everything except glad and glad mount). This is a problem currently because RBGs =/= Arena. Why? Because RBGs award far more points per win, and at the lower ratings, is incredibly inflated. You are completely capable of getting 1600 rating in RBGs with a fairly ramshackle team because the ceiling is very, very high for casual pvpers. Those above 3k rating in 3s are almost always tournament players. Those above 3k in RBGs are likely to have been wintrading, or at the very least, benefited from inflation indirectly.
This was almost entirely behind why the 216ilvl pvp gearing via conquest vendors and upgrading (either through carries or genuine RBG teams) in pve became a problem. Just about every one of my pve guild began doing RBGs and exclusively avoided arena because RBGs were so much easier to get the gear with. It would be laughable were it not so depressing.
So, now we’re encouraging even more people to easily do 10 games of RBGs, get a free spider mount, and now expect more easy rewards from RBGs. That’s fine, I really don’t mind if people want to run around with vicious mounts–they’re pretty cool and I like to spread the love around, especially for an underloved community like RBGs. But it shows me that Blizzard’s attention for pvp is focused in absolutely useless cosmetic areas.
To sum up… Let RBG’s be fun, easy, and inflated at the lower ratings SEPERATELY from arena! RBGs must be excluded from arena gear rewards and 2100 enchants, 1800 sets, and conquest upgrading, by having its own rating requirement for those rewards raised at least on the order of 200 points–but more accurately, it ought to be 400 or an algorithm! Address this Blizzard!
Sincerely, a concerned and frustrated PvPer
P.S. The season felt so good this time around, albeit a little too fast paced, but you either begrudgingly adjust or you just flat out lose games. But what made it so worthwhile was how GOOD the pvp gear was–and that it ENABLED me to do more content in the game–having earned the right to do decent DPS in PvE because you crushed skulls in PvP. This is in comparison to 9.1, where pvp gear feels WEAK and excluding compared to PVE gear. Why punish us doing my favorite content (pvp) by making me bad in another?