We have seen some concerns regarding the Arena rating cutoff details and wanted to confirm that the increased values are accurate. We resolved an issue where the leaderboards were not updating correctly, it now shows the current season cutoff awards. This increase in the cutoffs in comparison to last season is due to weekly MMR increase that was introduced to the game. We are continuing to monitor the situation and will let you know if anything changes.
4 Likes
are the gladiator / r1 spots accurate too?
If so there is ~50% decrease in arena participation from season 5
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There’s a 50% decrease in total amount of spots available when compared to the previous season. The actual rating for the cutoffs is irrelevant as they are % based and isn’t a big driving point for community concern right now. It’s the amount of title spots available indicating a serious issue with player participation that is worrying us. We’ve never seen a drop off so large in the history of this game, retail included.
Is anything being done to address this massive drop off in participation?
Rating requirements for gear seems to be a likely reason for the lower interest in arena, combined with high bot counts in battlegrounds. A significant part of the PvP playerbase do arena in order to get gear to be better in battlegrounds. When you combine their inability to get the gear and a terrible battleground experience due to bots, a lot of people just stop playing.
I personally suggest a two fold approach to these issues, which most likely could only be implemented next season unfortunately.
A complete removal of all rating requirements outside of the T2 weapon and tabard. Reduce the weapon to 1800 or 2000. While the T2 weapon is good, it needs to be on a level of availability compared to the current PvE content. Getting a weapon form ulduar is much easier then getting an arena weapon. Perhaps add additional cosmetics to encourage players at higher ratings. This should be combined with a total rollback of the MMR inflation mechanic that was added.
Combine this with better enforcement of botting and I think we will see a dramatic boost in participation counts next season as more casual players are encouraged to queue up and give arena a try. I can’t express in words how’s discouraging it must be to get arena points only to be limited to spending them on woefully outdated deadly gear when the current content PvE gear outclasses it in such a large way.
19 Likes
Yeah, people aren’t upset that ratings are higher this season… everyone I talk to loves it. I think there’s frustration that this community is dying, and the % based participation rewards are a feedback loop on participation… less players = less rewards = less players = less rewards.
I’m probably alone in saying this, but I’d prefer the retail solution at this point. Slap in top x% for rank one at the end of the season and earn glad mount/title with 100 wins above 2400 or hell even 2200.
Keep rating inflation high, increase access. I just want more queues man. I don’t care about the stupid mount. If 5% of the player base believed they could earn the mount we’d be swimming in queues, I could actually find people in LFG.
9 Likes
Probably too late to get back all the players that quit. Might not be too late to stop more from leaving though, because wow what is season 8 going to look like at this rate?
1 Like
Doesn’t explain the major decrease in # of spots for titles
a gentle reminder that 1 of the maps allows only certain race/gender combos to exploit a game breaking jump and another map allows for complete safespotting of all pets
3 Likes
Huge too. They would need to fix this or else even removing rating gates won’t help. People in the lower 65% want a place to use the gear they just earned.
There are a serious amount of bugs effecting high end arena right now, and while they should be addressed ASAP they have very little to no effect on total player participation.
Our friends at 1400 aren’t abusing exploits like this.
2 Likes
Inflated PvE gear ilvl, and BOOSTING for rating has killed a lot of participation too. I was playing 3s today, and ran into two teams that were 2x rank 1 players + one boostee.
There’s no good way to find casual pvp partners anymore for alts.
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No casual incentive to play arena. All gear is locked behind rating. It’s just easier to swipe in gdkp and get weapons and items far superior to pvp gear.
1 Like
Lmao imagine caring about the ruins ledge when pet classes can bug combat forever and never get sapped unless someone uses another bug 
the game is so bugged
sap bug isn’t a bug play any server or look at old videos from 10yrs ago, working as intended please get your priest off the ledge!
cutoff values correct
participation halved
hpal stonks going strong boys
Nah this client is the only one with this. Lol.
Maybe start punishing people who are boosting in arena as a start?
Jobless rank 1’s are constantly spamming chat trying to sell boosts for gold and there are probably a lot more selling for $$$ through discords as well.
If you’re making a push to 1.8/2/2.2 and you have to play against someone that’s 800 rating lower than where they should be that’s a problem.
1 Like
Yes, the boosting is a serious issue.
But again none of this has ANY effect on the more casual players that make up 90% of the ladder. I’m talking about the average 1200-1500 playerbase that have lost all reason to ever queue up.
2 Likes
Yeah I’m actually with that. the push is so degen anyways at last two weeks and many people collude in discords… I remember my buddy was in the snutz disc in tbc and they literally plot and snipe everything
They haven’t done bans since season 2. Those high end players have a lot of friends who work for blizzard now. I think everytime chanimals gets banned he’s unbanned within an hour
The whole thing is corrupt, is what it is
Yeah, it’s ridiculous that everyone who thought they should get a better title than they’re in for now suddenly wants solutions and “handouts” (what they called fixes last season, just repeating it) but back when there was time to save half the ladder from quitting the only answer was “git gud.”
I don’t really care what they do with the titles, but it’s a shame the community could not get on board with equalizing gear distribution odds to be at least as good as TBC.
EDIT: Agreeing with you, pointing out what Dacro asked for was…questionable.