Inemia's Suggested Changes for the next PVP Dev to fix PVP

PVP Battlegrounds
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Gear

All pvp gear scales to +5 over Mythic Raid PVE ilvl in instanced pvp and while in pvp combat in war mode.

  • Honor Gear
    -no longer upgrades and starts at max ilvl(currently 216)
    -costs only gold
    -one item of each slot,
    -target is 75-80% optimal stats

  • Starter Legendaries
    -ilvl 190 outside of pvp, max seasonal ilvl inside pvp
    -current standard accepted best or highly viable power for each spec
    -no socket
    -costs only gold

  • Conquest gear
    -3 items of each type available from the vendor (verse+crit/haste/mast)
    -can be upgraded with honor points
    -upgrade ranks no longer tied with rating but unlocked by participating in any pvp content
    -unlocking a rank should take 2 weeks for a casual, faster for rated, much faster for 2100+
    -max ilvl is 5 ilvl below mythic raid PVE ilvl
    -honor cost to upgrade goes up with each rank

The goal here is to make pvp as easy and quick to jump into as possible while still maintaining some progression and power reward for putting in some time and effort. The Honor gear will allow players to immediately gear up for pvp, including a legendary, allowing players who just want to pvp to just pvp with no need to pve at all. scaling everything up to the same ilvl ensures pvp is fair and completely eliminates the gap and pay2win and soon pay2play issues driving players away.

For players who want to do more content, or fully optimize their character, the ilvl of conquest gear outside of pvp can still be upgraded to substantially high ilvl, high enough to dip into high end pve content as well as torghast.

Maps

  • Create a Random Brawl Queue
  • Move Seething Shore to the Brawl pool
  • Return Strand of the ancients to the Random BG Pool
  • Add 4 more maps to the Epic pool:
    -Battle for Nazjatar
    -Arathi Warfront
    -Southshore vs Terran Mill
    -Suggested new map: Battle for Helfire, 40v40 with flying mounts in the remains of HFP’s wpvp objectives.

Instanced PVP:

  • Change all battlegrounds to have randomized teams from both factions
    -horde and alliance mixed
    -merc mode removed(not needed with mixed factions)
    -no races, racials, or transmogs changed
    -cross faction talking is allowed (universal elixer of tongues hidden buff)
    -if players want to choose a team, or if epic premades want to ensure they get everyone on the same team, or want to war game and face opposite teams, an NPC can give a team red or team blue buff which will always place a player on that team. buff should last until canceled.

World PVP:

  • We need world pvp events similar to invasions
    -over all of azeroth.
    -encourage travel out to old zones for wpvp
    -reward can be a mount obtained from a chest
    –mount can have multiple colors for repeat winners

Other:

  • remove honor cap
  • remove conquest cap
  • return conquest for close matches in epics and add rewards for rare boss kills or perfection
  • Fruit Vendor:
    -Spend Honor points to buy crafting mats
    -Spend conquest points to buy crafting mats in bulk.

Future:

Create a pvp island instance which is entered via instance door from the pvp halls in org/sw, similar to darkmoon fair and brawlers guild with live arena matches players can queue for and spectate, as well as vendors galore including auction house, and areas of the island for wpvp, both small encounters and battles.

this would serve as the primary hub and hangout place for pvpers when they are not doing stuff, again the elixer of tongue hidden buff would apply.

32 Likes
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All Great suggestions!

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Just giving this a quick nudge back to the top, Shadowlands is really starved of wPvP.

They got it right in BFA, wPvP was way more active/lively back then. Mechagon and Nazjatar are good examples, but even the basic 6 BFA zones had plenty of action.

2 Likes
4

I don’t care much for any of these suggestions. PVP already is easy enough. You do not need to pve to pvp lol…

and a very hard NO to the mixed factions.

5

2011 38k lifetime hk’s you dont even pvp

2 Likes
6

I think all your ideals or great except for one, and you know which one that is. Lol

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I don’t think “mixed faction” BGs would go over very well with the general public tbh.

A lot of people prefer to play their chosen race for various reasons whether it’s aesthetics, transmog, a racial ability, passives, etc. You take away that personal choice and make mixed factions the “default” game mode, I can see some backlash to that. Then there’s also the “faction pride” aspect, some people genuinely like fighting for their chosen faction/side.

And also, it’s mostly Alliance pug players asking for/pushing this idea. Very few Horde players care much about this since they already have the option to just go merc mode… and most Horde players don’t even use the feature, which is quite telling :thinking:

1 Like
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i think if anything Brawls themselves could possibly be mixed faction

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So on the mixed factions, there are some things to consider:

  • faction population imbalance
  • faction win rate imbalance
  • faction queue time imbalance
  • asymmetrical maps provide a different experience depending on which side is played.

mixing factions really is the best way to solve those issues as well as gain some net benefits. the idea that we can just let things get bad enough and suddenly horde will give in and start transferring to alliance is a false hope. what happens is the game just gets deader and players leave. you have to remember that players have thousands of hours of time invested into their toons, simply asking them to throw that away by forcing a faction transfer is very heavy handed.

lets be clear, the faction imbalance is a huge issue, not one that just affects PVP. PVE is suffering just as much, Ally guilds can’t get raiders, high end M+ players can’t get groups.

randomized factions in BGs is a nice and easy way to solve issues of faction balance and queue times, as well as ending all arguements about racials and map based faction favoritism. with mixed factions if there is a win rate trend, such as WG Def vs WG Atk, then all other factors besides the map would have been ruled out.

the other thing to consider is community, the pvp community is small compared to the PVE community, allowing cross faction play allows for more social connections and friendships to be made. Ideally i would like to see crossfaction play extended to the point where you could invite and group with players cross faction. i have a lot of friends on ally, and in order to play with them, or for them to play with me, one of us has to play on a sub par alt, not very fun.

one of the things i tried to think of though was players with faction loyalty, as well as premades, large epic premades are fun in epics, and getting half your team on Red and half on Blue might be problematic as it could lead to win trading or trolling. so a way to always select which side you are on needs to be in place. this could be where the current merc guy is, and should last until cancelled, so that if someone wants to remain loyal to a faction they have that option.

its defaulted because the intent is to solve the issues with faction imbalance for everyone, not provide an always on merc mode for a few.

my own personal view on faction loyalty is that pvp is more of the sports side to wow the rpg, so the factions in pvp are basically representative of red vs blue, but still inherently disconnected from the factions themselves. currently jaina and thrall and pals are all cross factioning it up in SL, so i think even the writers think its time to mix.

2 Likes
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OK, I kind of softened on the mixed faction thing I really have, I almost became a horde just to play with my friends that went horde.

To be honest with you, I’m kind of torn between this when I log in the excitement that I get from killing hordes I just love it, I’ll always have, and I’m scared if that’s taken away then this game won’t be fun to me anymore.

1 Like
11

I mean, the OP inemia doesn’t even use merc mode, that should tell us everything we need to know about what he thinks about “mixing” with Alliance pugs :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I merc, just not very often:

i dont like my gear and race changing, otherwise i’d probably merc more often.

1 Like
13

Faction identity is not something that should ever be casually dismissed, there are people with faction based tattoos, so the playerbase does take it seriously, but at the same time the benefits and net gain to the community, even just the pvp community, can’t be understated.

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The thing is, when I almost went horde, I didn’t like the way horde look, there was nothing appealing to me. The only one that looks appealing to me on the horde side is maybe the blood elf chick, other than that there’s not one that I like.

Mixed faction like I said, I’m kind of torn in between now being able to play with my friends again would be awesome, but I got a feeling it won’t be as exciting for me anymore.

1 Like
15

Honestly the PVP community has more drama than most soap operas. the best design is probably one that is slightly less than balanced and perfect, as this still allows for drama which keeps players engaged. the ability to intentionally pick a color in bgs would still allow for plenty of drama.

So if you are an ally player currently and you pick the team blue buff, the only thing that would really change from your point of view is you would see horde players on your team in their non-merc races, and you would be able to yell and taunt the horde team without using weird translation macros.

1 Like
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You see, I never thought that merc mode was a good ideal even when they had that toy or whatever it was where you could kill your own faction I never did do it, I thought it was ridiculous.

Now, sometimes, I’d like to take Alliance out behind the woodshed and just beat the you know what out of them.

2 Likes
17

Was just re-reading this post, and noticed you suggested moving Seething Shore to the “brawls” category… what are your thoughts on moving Wintergrasp to the “brawls” category? :bulb:

Clearly, a majority of pug players do not like Wintergrasp/afk out of this map in large numbers (either before it starts, or shortly after the first teamfight). The map really does seem more suited to an occasional “brawl” given the general public - it’s simply unpopular and it shows.

Actually balancing it/making it fair would probably require a complete overhaul/lots of dev time… whereas if it were an occasional, optional “brawl” it wouldn’t really matter that it’s imbalanced.

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wintergrasp originally was meant to give a sense of seige style warfare that was a server event. it was sort of meant to change hands and had to be retuned and reworked multiple times during wrath but the core way its played was never changed, even when it was added as an epic.

it wasn’t originally designed with perfect balance in mind, but there is some work i think could be done to make it better and on part with the other epics, so i think it would be better to stay as an overhauled game instead of moved to the brawl.

what i would do is get rid of the timer and make it a resource based game, essentially the win conditions become destroy 3 or kill 300.

attacking destroys 3 walls to win
destruction of 3 towers should give defense the win and end the game.

the southern workshops should remain always in the hands of the attacking team with only SR and BT being capturable.

total vehicles cut in half, but their HP buffed. same with walls and towers, their HP buffed as well, with towers likely needing 5-10% more than walls.

19

I like how you danced around/avoided the question :laughing:

@Inemia all that stuff sounds nice and all… but there’s still that elephant in the room of the map itself being disliked/unpopular with pug players.

Pug players don’t want to be there, that’s the point I was trying to make. Hence why moving it over into the “brawls” category is a possible solution to be considered.

1 Like
20

yeah, but pugs dont like it because its decided in the first fight and there is a lot more vehicle action than dueling and the timer means you are stuck there on a loss being farmed.

if you fix all the complaints then it likely wont be hated as much.

1 Like