Posted last year, glad to see them come around on addons. Now the rest

PVP Arenas
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Reposting this from last year. Only way to fix the PVP scene. We’re already seeing rumbles of the addon change, now time for the rest.

1. Attracting New Blood:

  • F2P PvP Access: How about letting Game Pass users dive into PvP for free? They could create PvP-only characters that would get locked to a dedicated “PvP Island,” similar to setups in other MMOs. PVE players could travel to this island / city to go hang out as well. The cost of new player acqusition on a monthly sub game is getting harder than ever with the amount of choices out there. The WoW team is notoriously bad at filling the funnel with new people.

Current Existing Solution: We have tournament realms where players can quickly gear up and jump into max-level PvP. Since PvP content doesn’t change drastically each season, it stays fresh with minimal upkeep.

2. Juicier Rewards:

  • Reward Tracks: Let’s introduce paths where players can earn unique PvP transmogs based on volume of games played. Maybe the saddles we’ve been collecting over the years could actually go towards something.
  • Cosmetic Store Items: Adding exclusive cosmetic items and mounts to the in-game store could work quite well with land locked F2P players.

Current Existing Solution: The in-game store and Trading Post let us snag cosmetic items using tenders or cash. Or just flat out getting the season’s set for reaching rating thresholds as it works now.

3. Streamlined Talents and UI:

  • Simplify Talents: Trimming down the talent trees could make the game more newbie-friendly.
  • AWC Interface as Default: Making the AWC interface the standard for PvP, along with some tutorials, could help everyone. Getting rid of addons.

Current Existing Solution: The AWC interface is popular and gets updated each season. Adding bot-driven arena tutorials, like “Comp Stomp,” might be helpful. Simplifying talents is a big task, but ideas like Plunderstorm are exploring this. Specs with simpler rotations, like BM, Fury, or Havoc, have been successful. Reducing our reliance on addons could lead to a more stable and future-proof game, especially since we often have to redo UIs each season when support drops.

4. Solo Queue for 3v3 Arenas:

  • Flexible Matchmaking: Updating the LFG system to let us queue solo, as a duo, or as a trio, with matchmaking pairing similar group types, could cut down on wait times.

Current Existing Solution: Features like Solo Shuffle and Skirmishes address this need. Expanding this system to rated 2v2 and 3v3 arenas would be beneficial. I’d rather play a suboptimal comp than sit around in Dornogal for 30-60 minutes at a time. I’ve started to play other games in that time frame.

TLDR: Implementing these changes could boost profits, grow the player base, and keep players around longer with minimal risk or resources. The esports scene is huge, and revamping PvP could bring participation back to Wrath of the Lich King levels. Dedicating 1-3 months of work from systems engineers, UI designers, and artists - maybe reusing existing areas like Oribos for a PvP hub - could make this happen. F2P players might transition into the full game, fitting with cross-selling strategies seen in other Blizzard-Activision titles. Making it easy to join the ecosystem mirrors successful models like Warzone’s free access. Considering marketing costs to attract users, focusing on easy entry could be more cost-effective. Looking at competitive games like Dota, Rocket League, and League of Legends (amongst many others), there’s a lot of room for WoW’s PvP scene to grow.

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This text emanates an aura most foul.

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It’s okay, I’ll post this again a year from now and see how much progression has been made on these other points (should the WoW team want to attempt preserving arenas).

But instead they’ll wait until the game is on life support, pay a $5m contract to a consultancy - just for them to say what I’ve outlined in this post.

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I would agree with most of this. F2P would be good for pvp.

The rewards need to be redone since only 543 people are currently above 2400 in 3s on NA. I would say it should be similar to renowned rewards for achieving things within the pvp season.

I disagree though on streamlined talent trees, what we have now for talents is great, a lot of variability and choices.

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Interestingly, the simplification of the game has been slowly happening - spec by spec. I think visual clarity, and streamlining of keys will be especially important once addons go away (further proving the necessity for there being less abilities in general).

Can’t have hundreds of different visual and audio queues for each ability.

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You’re sorely mistaken if you think no addons will attract more people lmao. No addons will probably be the final nail in the coffin of PvP.

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How so? Most low rated players barely use them or don’t know how to actually use them. Removing them would just be an overall improvement for them.

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It can, and it will. Competitive integrity & fairness is everything in an PVP/esport based game. We saw this down to even forced resolutions in games like Valorant to prevent unfair field of views. Counterstrike banned specific keyboard modes because it created an advantage.

At this point, you’ll lose what - a couple hundred stubborn oldheads who will quit the game without addons (majority of us will keep playing), and attain thousands of new players who now find the mode palatable knowing they don’t have to borderline learn how to code to be competitive (seriously try playing without any weakauras, addons, or macros and tell me how far you get).

Having a leg up on an unsuspecting populace in the mode works for a time (who don’t get how all these add-ins work), before people give up on it completely and move on. Like I mentioned earlier WoW’s largest challenge now is not retaining people (sunken cost fallacy now after 2 decades for most), it’s acquiring new ones. A $15 a month sub for a single game is just too far separated from where the market is at now.

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I know everyone who already knows how to play the game will violently disagree with this, but having a monthly fee, dozens of binds, and seemingly endless amounts of CC just requires a different type of gamer to want to invest in–especially now when there’s so many AAA game options for people to play instead.

If I were a 15 year old kid and all my friends played other games anyway, why would I want to pick up a game I’ve got to continually pay for that requires literal hundreds of hours of practice to even get decent at? I just don’t think WoW PVP is a viable long-term option save for a miniscule amount of new-comers and older players still hanging on.

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Why is that?

Nahhhhh.

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Yeah, was basically my take. I don’t track CDs, etc. anyway so I just figured if they removed weakauras and other people’s ability to watch CD timers it would only serve to give other people the same disadvantage I already play with.

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We gotta ban chat gpt posts.

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Neat how your TLDR contains almost as many words as your 4 “new” proposals.

Also neat how you’re trying to act like you’ve been alone in your call for a reduction in add-on viability, like you’re somehow responsible for shining light on the subject. Scores upon scores, if not hundreds upon hundreds of posts about add-ons have been made over the years.

Generation ChatGPT kids need to stop thinking their AI-generated content makes them actually smart.

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we need kids to play Warcraft 3 that’s why they don’t go on to play the next game

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Same people were at the top before addon inflation and the same people are at the top after.

Addon bloat is real but acting like it’s been holding people back is just cope.

Nah. The talent trees and all the different ways to build your character is the best part about this expansion.

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If addons aren’t helping low cr players press any of their buttons, removing them certainly won’t help them either.

They need to install the IRL hands-eyes deluxe package

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Unpopular opinion: Addons aren’t the reason why people are better than you at the game. Disabling addons will only help the cheesy 1 shot specs get some undeserved cr once in a while.

Soon we can all expect to play this game on console with our 3 pruned abilities all doing the same thing, since i guess thats blizzards ultimate plan anyway.

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No one actually thinks this that wants the game to just be natively a higher quality experience. I feel like it’s such a cop-out to say this. There are plenty of players in my shoes that have all the necessary addons/WAs that would simply rather just not have to deal with it. Every patch practically you’re updating them, changing them, fixing broken ones, etc. If it was all just in the game natively, I’d be way pleased. I deleted bartender4 and never went back to it after Edit Mode came out. This is World of Warcraft. Not Rift or some other less played MMO. The game should be held to a very high standard of quality, rather than crutching on 3rd party software essentially to fix its problems in many major aspects.

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Adel and Molerat stonks :chart_with_upwards_trend:

gestures at default arena frames that sit there like a booger you can’t wipe off

Tried this but addons are just way better. :dracthyr_a1: I kind of get what you mean, though.

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Yeah I actually had to download an addon (and edit the .LUA file for it…) to make it so the button order doesn’t awkwardly reverse in Edit Mode. Basically when you change the bar orientation, Edit Mode reversed the button order, and this addon fixed that. So now I’m loving it way more even.

I do really wish action bar paging was available in Edit Mode. I’d love to play around with it like I did on bartender, but it’s not a deal breaker for me.