I think I know why Blizz liked PvP Scaling now

PVP Arenas
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I always thought PvP scaling was an overcomplicated solution if all they wanted to do was minimize the difference in gear between players. On top of all of that, it was supremely annoying that we couldn’t tell the “real” damage that we were doing.

Why did they choose such an opaque and complicated system?

Well, it turns out, I think that was the point! The whole reason that PvP scaling is complex and opaque is because they don’t want us to know the damage that we’re doing. My theory is that Blizz thinks if we knew how hard we had to work for so little of an advantage, then we would just stop PvE’ing and focus on PvP (or worse, give up on our toons because “there’s nothing left to do”).

Now there have been some things that actually have made big difference, like essences, some azerite traits, on-use trinkets, and corruptions. But there are tons of things the LOOK like they make a difference like, ahem, gems or mythic gear that probably really don’t.

But we never see this, all we see are our numbers getting bigger. So no matter whether the item helps us our not, we get that sense of progression. So we aren’t going to say to ourselves “what the point of farming visions?” or “what’s the point in farming mythic Ny’alotha?”

The whole point, it seems, was to deceive us and give us a system that is almost impossible to understand. Because Blizzard is smarter than us and they know what we really want.

But, unfortunately, a system that fools the players will inevitably lead to bugs and unintended consequences going unchecked. Personally, I would’ve been overjoyed to know that gem slots are useless: I could’ve spent that time trying to get better at arena instead of trying to keep up with the gear race. So, in trying to keep me engaged, they’ve actually made me very annoyed, and I’m going to look at their decisions with more jaded perspective.

I just think this system has to stop if they want to earn the trust of players again. I want a system that is transparent.

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Yeah, I’m pretty sure the removal of the WoD system and also Legion templates was to boost PVE participation by PVPers.

Makes even more sense now that apparently they aren’t wanting to disable Legendaries or other effects in PVP in SL.

I just wanna PVP man. But if you bring it up to PVE people they’ll just go “pLaY OvErWatCh” which is probably the most shortsighted thing you could respond to that with.

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Ya, we can put the tin foil hats away…

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Someone in another thread pointed out that Blizz’s plan to include a 5% “spell variance” on all your abilities in Shadowlands probably proves the point of the OP.

Going to be hard to test broken systems when you can’t reliably test them, since the numbers you’re seeing while testing could just fall under that 5% variance.

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then you just acquire more data, and allow a 5% variance. the more data you acquire the more that variance becomes normal then you look for outliers from that variance. It’s really not that hard.

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Theoretically speaking, no it’s not harder. But the time investment increases exponentially. Throw in the fact that with pvp you need a partner to test with and it makes it much harder to coordinate.

That said, spell variability has been around since D&D days and was in WoW from the beginning. There’s no need to assign a devious motivation to it. Still, I can’t think of a good reason to add it back in.

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I can think of a reason why. It gives a more “organic” feel. Sure, its a video game, but spell variance is a small nuance that gives the game more depth on the periphery of notice. Like randomized textures etc. It adds that into the gameplay which i’m cool with. 5% isn’t really going to make or break that much to be honest.

and another thing, sure it requires a partner but you can literally create a script to track the data for you. With how common place basic coding is now, low leveling scripting and data structures should be as common place as basic knowledge of MS office products.

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Anyone who can do algebra can test these systems now, once you start having to account for a 5% tolerance you get into the realm of assumptions and a significant time sink. Remember it won’t be a static + or - 2.5%, it will be everything within that range to whatever decimal point blizzard has coded. Have fun with that one, my degree wasn’t in statistics so I won’t be diving into that pool anytime soon.

My guess is sims will focus on the top and bottom ranges for simplicity, giving us a dps range now instead of a specific number. I personally like the idea of variance, no two encounters will be the same but for identifying minor ghost scripts constantly adjusting your output all I can say is best of luck.

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I wonder how long it would’ve taken to tease out a 1% damage received increase (like Rextroy just did) when the spell variability itself is five times greater than the signal you’re trying to find. My guess is it would take thousands of spell casts at least. That means your partner is dying over and over or sitting around just healing themselves.

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The activity is declining in participation hard. Look at RBGs right now. Arena will share that fate given the nature of it (independent of the nonsense blizzard has done with Legion and BFA).

As a PvE player though, I have been quite happy to go after the chase aspects of essences, and will actually want to do more pvp in shadowlands. To sort of make up for not doing it for years as a casual in tbc and earlier.

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I think those chase and engage type of rewards are good for the health of the game, however, sometimes you need to invest in the life in the room rather than the lives outside it. If arena balance isn’t taken more serious than it was in the last two seasons of BFA there won’t be a pvp community left worth reaching out too.

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Yes definitely, and really as a whole too blizzard noped out of BFA after patch 8.2 drop. Their last Q&A with Ion and Josh was in March 2019. Only communication we have had with them have been through onesided product demos, and interview retrospectives with mainly Ion. A big step down from what we had earlier on BFA and throughout legion. Naturally, I don’t view communication relating to shadowlands as a real increase because they want to deliver a product and thus will increase air time to try and sell it.

Also I don’t mean to dog on you or pvpers but genuinely what drives you to come back to this game? Like blizzard uses the rolled newspaper and neglecting strat way too much on y’all. And as an outsider looking in, y’all do tend to be as a bit unruly/stubborn as the classic community, but why. Why put up with blizz’s bs. If I was doing what y’all were, I feel like I would have quit around WoD/early legion.

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Best way I can describe it is there isn’t another game like wow on the market, particularly arena. Maybe it’s Stockholm’s syndrome, but the pace of arena and the understanding how everything is supposed to play out in matches can truly be fun if balanced well. Another part of it is a lot of people started when arena was in a really good place, and as we see other activities evolve into better versions (m+ has been a huge success) we just want arena to have the same attention.

Arena balance is so much harder than normal pvp balance because of the pace. Literally 1 wasted gcd can cost you a match, nothing else in the game is quite like that aside from cutting edge raiding. I remember loving TBC arena even with its faults, if you beat someone you were probably better than them because you couldn’t get overpowered by Cooldowns until 4pc 4pc warglaive rogues came out.

I personally miss losing because I made mistakes and was out outplayed, not because someone has better buttons.

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Personally, I liked Legion just fine. Probably in the minority in that respect, but I never worried about gear and it was great.

BFA wasn’t that bad until corruptions, IMO. And honestly nobody really knew what was going on with gems until it got pointed out very recently.

There is nothing in the game that compares to PvP honestly. Even at its worst, I’d rather PvP than run the same dungeon for millionth time or wait around waiting for 15 people to put the kids to bed/feed the dogs/take a bio in raids. The problem isn’t that PvP isn’t enjoyable, IMHO, it’s that we remember times when it was better and don’t understand why they made it worse.

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100%. Thanks for articulating how I imagine the vast majority of players(myself included) feel about this “scaling system”.

I hardly ever forum post but this “system” is actually abhorrent blizzard.