PvP Feels Neglected from the Top Down

[Leftnutz-lava-lash]

I think you should really highlight the reward structure and MMR system the most that you talked about. The other issues are a problem but I doubt they would address them anytime soon if ever. But the reward/ranking system is handsdown killing pvp

[Feralscale-jaedenar]

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

• Normalize MMR so that healer ratings are in-line with DPS ratings
• Prevent MMR losses from going 3-3 or better

Healer MMR should reflect everyone elses MMR in the matchup. Idk why healers have their own MMR system because it generally results in healers going 3-3 and getting 0 points virtually, and in even some cases going 4-2 and getting nothing. Which is insane.

Just give healers a token for an elite set from any season if they reach 1800. Who cares at this point just give people an incentive to play healer because we all know it sucks.

[Sheepstealer-shuhalo]

People don’t play bc they don’t enjoy the PvP. Whether it’s balance, gameplay, barrier to entry or q times.

[Thasta-tichondrius]

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Over the past few weeks, PvP participation has plummeted, despite the fact that we are still in Season 1 of a new expansion. This is extremely concerning for the short term success of the expansion and the long term health of the community.

Low player retention is caused by serious structural problems within the game itself, which have all been severely neglected by developers. Some of these problems have been ongoing for years.

Below is a list of the most critical problems, which should all be fixed as quickly as possible.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up, I completely agree with everything. Just a couple points I want to emphasize on because I feel like they interact in a way that creates a negative feedback loop with each other and also something not yet mentioned: respect for player time.

Problem: New/fresh characters MMR starting at 1800+ instead of 1500

• This causes new players to be placed into lobbies where opponents have more gear, experience, and skill, in which there is a high chance that player will go 0-6.
• This means that 2-4 of the other players in the lobby will waste their time (1-30 minutes of queue time and 15-20 minutes of play time) and go 3-3.
• This also is very discouraging for new players because it may take multiple lobbies for their rating to get to their actual skill level. Going 0-6 for 1 lobby, let alone multiple times is extremely disheartening and players are likely to just give up and not play again.

Problem: 6-round shuffle format

When I first heard about this format, I thought it was interesting. Now that we’ve seen it in action since the end of shadowlands, I think the problems it exacerbates are a lot more obvious, the main one being respect for players’ time.

• Having 6 rounds creates situations in where 1 player can win or lose 6 rounds. This can be caused by an extremely unfavorable or favorable matchup of player skill, or a class/spec against the other specs in the lobby. Simple examples: Frost mage into 3 warrior lobby, or Holy paladin vs Resto druid in a melee cleave lobby.
• When 1 player wins or loses 6 rounds, that means 2-4 other players won 3 and lost 3 rounds. When DPS players are waiting 10-30 minutes for a queue and another 15-20 for gameplay, this feels like you’re wasting your time. The same can be said of healers when a dps player goes 6-0 or 0-6.
• Toxic behavior arises due to the competitive nature of PvP. When players start losing games on purpose or alt F4’ing mid lobby due to disagreements or frustrations, the RNG of when this happens will unfairly benefit some players and hurt others. When such a player is on your team, it once again feels like personal agency is being taken out of your hands by someone else for multiple games and it feels like your time is being wasted.

TLDR; Player time feels disrespected by the 6-round shuffle format.

• Queue times would be shortened by making it an actual 1-round solo queue like the players originally requested.
• Lobby rating swings would be less volatile and newer players wouldn’t be overwhelmed by being mismatched for 6 rounds in a row against more experienced/geared opponents.
• Player toxicity would be mitigated by a higher churn rate; not playing the same lobby 6 rounds in a row on the same map

[Velgen-tichondrius]

A lot of people said how much they hated plunderstorm but they played it anyways. They wanted the rewards associated with it. You need a carrot to get people to do content.

If they took all the rewards out of plunderstorm, m+, raiding, and delves, exactly how many people do you think would still do that content? Same applies to PvP.

[Sgarbossa-tortheldrin]

Please Blizzard give some attention to PvP. I agree with everything Bigmoran is saying. With the long q times for shuffle, in addition to the vast number of problems mainly stemming from MMR and lack of attention. I am considering quiting.

[Lorethon-moon-guard]

There’s an exception to the rewards argument. It is that the most popular form of pvp in WoW, random/epic BGs, offer near zero rewards. In fact, they have offered few rewards for decades. And yet they have been and will always be the most popular form of pvp.

So if rewards make players Q and play, why are random/epic BGs so popular? I think the problem lies elsewhere. But, more rewards in casual pvp, sure, why not? I’d take more rewards in random/epic BGs…but if they just keep what they are doing: some xmogs which can be bought later for Marks, I and many others would still Q.

Anyway, I wish y’all luck in getting rated fixed. It seems to me that randoms and rated don’t much mix. Maybe they can fix that? idk, tho.

[Zarelieda-aegwynn]

These are great suggestions for sure but they will take at least another season to implement. Right now they need to combat dwindling participation, at least in Solo Shuffle, by giving healers a better experience when they queue up by buffing healer MMR which is 200-300 points lower than DPS MMR. Doing this would already help queue times a lot as well as encourage healers to push.

[Space-crushridge]

I support this message +1

[Nasrajin-sargeras]

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Over the past few weeks, PvP participation has plummeted

Not disagreeing, JW, does anyone have numbers? I really miss that luduslabs guy who did the weekly state of the ladder.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Increase MMR inflation more aggressively if needed to help offset lower participation

Disagree. I think the majority of problems are BECAUSE blizzard has shown that they will inflate mmr, creating a community problem in which people don’t queue because they believe blizzard will just juice the ladder.

I DO think there should be closer and more standardized mmr between seasons, but blizzard needs to be vocal and communicate more.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Revert back to a percentage based title system, so that players have a more accurate way to gauge their progress

Not opposed, but then do you have to wait until end of season to get glad? If not, would there be a huge push to slam rating early to try and cheese out a glad as an 1800 player? If you put a delay on the time to calculate glad wins, would the ladder stagnate alltogether?

At the end of the day, how would this be better than we have now. Despite mmr clarity which is ENTIRELY a community perception?

At the end of the day it feels bad to be 2.4 sl xp and hardstuck 2k now, but even with the reversion to %glad, we’d see FAR fewer people ever achieving it. This feels very much like a, “you think you do, but you don’t”.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Normalize MMR so that healer ratings are in-line with DPS ratings

Yes. Also buff strongboxes to give meaningful rewards and make the reward quality scale with rating so healers are incentivized to climb as opposed to smurfing and/or farming low cr boxes.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Prevent MMR losses from going 3-3 or better

This feels fine to me.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

The long term solution is to offer 1-round Solo queues, so that the churn of players is faster and “losing” lobbies do not feel as punishing

Would change the meta quite a bit and make a LOT of specs feel awful. Imagine qing enh shaman and getting a mage on your team and just losing because your class has worse comp synergy.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

• Freeze the Tournament Realm’s patch so that tuning can be done on live servers while competitions are active
• Focus on buffing the current underperforming specs using PvP modifiers and by reworking PvP talents

100% agree.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Gearing

Feels 100% fine to me. No changes imo. I actually think gearing is already too easy atm which leads to an insane amount of fotm rerolling.

I do think that if you purchase a conquest slot (i.e. buy the chest), you should be able to buy a different chest piece with honor, so you can play other specs/builds without having to wait for conquest cap to be removed.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Revisit the map pools and make un-used maps functional for Solo Shuffle

Anyone miss blade’s edge?

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Have a monthly “Community Day” for PvP, including robust rewards that could encourage PvP participation across all brackets

Awesome idea.

I also think pvp gear should scale up to mythic raid level at 2400+ like in slands again. I think that alone would fix participation.

[Beedle-frostmourne]

Agree with this post!

As someone who only plays healer and only plays wow for arena it can feel pretty rough to queue up sometimes.

I only log on every now and then because I enjoy the odd arena rather than the incentives and rewards which aren’t enticing enough.

I only have like 3 ppl on btag to play with as well so that doesn’t help much either lol.

[Fotmhealer-sargeras]

I agree with everything you said, except the way to fix que times. I do agree, that 6 rounds is way too much, and 1 is a great idea. They need to scrap the whole solo que idea. There are NO other games that prevent you from queing with a duo. I heal, and I can tell you right now. I’d 100% que more if i was able to que up with a buddy of mine. Honestly, shuffle should be like how skirmishes are. Queable as any party size and you que for either 2v2, or 3v3 and it’s ranked. And before anyone says that a party of would have an advantage. Well, yea no duh. Every ranked game (league, fortnite, warzone, overwatch etc.) gives you the option of queing by yourself, or with teamates. If you want an “edge” over the other team, then learn to make friends in an MMO. If you don’t, then you aren’t at that big of a disadvantage. Solo shuffle single handedly is ruining pvp and it’s insane how not a lot of people see that.

[External-aggramar]

I’m glad people with large followings and clout are acknowledging what I wrote on here a week ago. I don’t see Remi, Fox and the rest of the gang on here just yet. Hopefully
In due time

[Xaräshi-bleeding-hollow]

One very important solution I would add is that 3v3 arena and 10v10 RBGs need more exclusive seasonal rewards. There’s way too much reward overlap between the solo que and premade brackets and RBG players have been begging for exclusive seasonal rewards such as a mount for over a decade.

[Lebanesemvp-frostmourne]

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

There was one “MMR inflation” event to help normalize ratings between Arenas and Battleground Blitz, but since then ratings have still seemed to stagnate

This needs to be more consistent.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

• “Challenger” “Rival” “Duelist” and “Gladiator”, can all have drastically different meanings in each season due to the massive fluctuations in average arena rating and participation
• Because there is not a robust granular reward system, many players will simply stop playing at certain benchmarks (typically 1800)

This is the biggest problem in wow pvp rn.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Revert back to a percentage based title system, so that players have a more accurate way to gauge their progress

we need this badly.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Prevent MMR losses from going 3-3 or better

I feel like this is 1 if statement and should be a simple fix.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

The long term solution is to offer 1-round Solo queues, so that the churn of players is faster and “losing” lobbies do not feel as punishing

Consolidate into 3v3.

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Freeze the Tournament Realm’s

20 people shouldnt hold the entire ladder hostage

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Have a monthly “Community Day” for PvP, including robust rewards that could encourage PvP participation across all brackets

Blizzard could take this idea and run. Endless posibilities.

[Lakersinsix-anetheron]

This 100%.

[Talvar-malganis]

PvP community was done after BFA, there’s no fuel for the fire and majority of the community just despised PvP and want more endgame focus for PvE. If you want PvP and more traditional gameplay PvE tank and healer it’s more supported in classic now. The rise of solo players and gimme gimme free epics ruin retail WoW.
PvP needs be gutted from ground up along with addons that support PvP in retail before it can be noticeable and War between factions needs to return for better health of PvP. The last time players got a report of how active PvP was in Dragonflight base off numbers it was only staggering 20% player population and I imagine it hasn’t gotten any better now that honeymoon phase over with TWW.

[Grandpopjim-illidan]

@Bigmoran-tichondrius

Starting MMR for fresh level 80 characters is around 1800-1900, which is way too high, especially for newer players

This is a major issue. Blizzard should provide an option for a player to get a onetime seasonal MMR reset. I queued yesterday at 1900 MMR. A BM in greens went 4-2 his first lobby and was fighting fully geared out players. He was friendly, and apologetic. Granted, it’s a terrible idea to use RSS as a means to gear, but people either have no options, no time or no understanding on what they’re signing up for in RSS during mid to late season.

Great post otherwise. Sadly, I don’t think Blizzard will make very many changes. Adding RSS and Blitz in was great, however, I think they were both poorly executed and myopic. Blizzard did not consider the impact of diluting the player base between theoretically 3 lucrative brackets. Now it’s just an arms race for most casual players to dogpile whichever bracket provides the easiest rewards.

I think percentage-based rewards, seasonal reward tracks and rating decay are a must in order to stop the hemorrhaging of the population.

[Zenraen-illidan]

Blizzard please, address this.

[Apesaver-kelthuzad]

Please just fix MMR. 3’s wouldn’t be dying if people felt like they were progressing. Honestly, the gameplay feels great and I have fun when I arena but the rating distribution feels awful. We need uncapped rating at the beginning of the season and we need more inflation if participation is lower, or we need to revamp the whole reward system to some sort of battle pass thing. There’s like 500 players above 2.4 right now. That’s shockingly lower than in past seasons. People want goals that will make them stretch but are attainable if they work hard for it. Right now, gladiator feels completely unattainable for 99%+ of players. Not a good system.