The title is the reality. PvP and PvE must be separated going forward. For too long has this nonsense of one side influencing the other been a thing, and it is worse than ever before. Watcher even said it in the Q&A that just happened a couple of days ago. PvP and PvE gear are largely interchangeable and used in both forms of content. The problem is that we now have one side influencing the other heavily.
World of Warcraft, by nature, like most MMO’s, is primarily a PvE game, with PvP coming afterward and being there for the people who enjoy the activity. It is largely voluntary as a result. In Legion, one of Warcraft’s best expansions to date, we had achieved this through the use of templates. PvP gear had largely become inconsequential. The item level was less, it wasn’t sought for PvE (a long time goal of Blizzard’s), and the lack of vendors didn’t bother people too much because we had nothing specific to target since it didn’t matter beyond item level. PvP had become what it was best at, which is a means to award trophies to players seeking to excel through things such as elite mogs, tabards, mounts, and titles.
BFA has taken all the good that Legion did, and went beyond undoing it, in my opinion. It’s made things unbelievably painful and encouraged absolutely horrible mindsets. With the loss of templates, and gear mattering, with Azerite traits (the worst gearing system in the game to date) included, BFA gearing through both systems has become even less about the sensation of fulfillment, and more about the feeling of gratitude toward RNG on the rare occasion.
Warmode has been flawed from the start with once again mixing PvE and PvP, granting PvE rewards with increases to the main carrot on a stick (Azerite) and most recently, heroic item level gear (which is thankfully being fixed on Tuesday, as is needed). The world has become filled with people taking one another out, not because they enjoy PvP, but because they enjoy the free loot and instant gratification. Remove that, and things like people camping Tortollan quests all day suddenly vanishes, because it’s no longer useful. It isn’t something fun for them in the moment, it’s something illusioned as fun with added toxic nonsense thrown in the middle such as the various forum threads throughout the day taunting the other faction.
Additionally, the nonsense dodge of an answer involving PvP vendors doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t. You cannot make gear matter again without giving players a path of their choosing involving how to get it when competitive positions and time sensitive rewards are in play. That is impossible. And I will debunk it now, by taking Watcher’s answer bit by bit, and countering it.
To the first - he stated that the philosophy is it’s too contrived to go out, find a vendor in the world, and spend an arbitrary currency on something regarding power. The Azerite Vendor added with 8.1, with a made-up on the spot currency that is gotten through extremely contrived means for rewards that must be simmed through third party websites such as Bloodmallet and has the most influence on our entire gearing set-up says hello. The Dubloon’s Vendor, which is off in the middle of no where, contrived in rewards and attained through one of the most rejected forms of content this game has ever seen, says hello. The honorbound service medals, a new currency, used at the honorbound service medal vendor, used to purchase new BoA’s (something people will surely seek out) along with new mounts and pets, says hello. All of these absolutely contradict this point, and all of them are extremely recent.
To the second - he stated that the idea of someone possibly misusing this currency on an upgrade that would otherwise not be optimal is simply counter intuitive. The entire idea to Warcraft, and MMO’s as a genre, has been the investment of time, and the understanding of mechanics which gradually become more complex. To think it is complicated for someone to head to the Mugumbala, or to the dueler’s ring in Boralus, understand their stat priority and make an informed decision based on that is insanity. What’s even more insane is to think that’s the case while also comparing it to the current PvE gearing path involving attaining Azerite gear you wouldn’t use, breaking it down for a new currency, going to a vendor, buying a random slot that you have no control over, and then comparing it through third party simming that most of the player base might not even know how to do is somehow less complicated.
And to the third - he said that raiders cannot buy PvE gear for the sake of downing their content. First, the Azerite vendor disproves this, so if we wish to take it tit for tat, then give PvP’ers a way in which to target Azerite gear beyond hoping for the box, and hoping the weekly conquest cap gives one. Second, this has never been the case because it was two different game modes, given two different gearing paths. Making them interchangeable is the cause of our situation now. It is not an excuse.
We must separate PvE and PvP. Remove all Warmode bonuses and all incentive to use PvE gear in PvP combat. Bring back vendors for conquest. Allow people to minmax properly. If you are going to make gear matter on a competitive ladder with which we have everything at risk, it should not be determined by whose RNG benefitted them more. This is absolute insanity. Couple that with the current state of the open world, and the open declaration that the idea behind the incentive was to grief people out of Warmode, and you have a really bad state of Warcraft. As a Blizzard fan boy, I so desperately want this game to get better, and for Blizzard to succeed. But this is nonsense.