Thank you to the Community Council Member Cyrios who linked this post in his CC Forum titled “The State of PvP” and thank you to the CC Members who are contributing to the conversation on his post, please join them if you haven’t already. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have, especially if you’re shy about speaking on the issue. We need your help. All areas of PvP gameplay are in shambles, Arena, Bgs, Epic BGs, RBGs, All BG Brackets Below lvl 70, Rated Arena, WPvP, and Solo Shuffle.
If you haven’t already, please consider supporting PvP changes to things that have harmed Retail PvP for years
Addressing any Nay Sayers and Mainly PvE Focused Players
I understand some of you may not like PvP and find much of the community to be very toxic. That’s understandable competative play is no stranger to this and similar sentiments can be made about high end Mythic+ and Raiding. Not all PvP players want to force you to PvP and gank you repeatedly, I certainly do not. I understand many of you would be happy to see PvP come to end entirely but please be respectful and remember we pay just as much as you do to play the game, our game modes are separate and nearly all class balance and tuning is done separately as well and should be to the maximum extent possible. We appreciate your input here on this thread but please refrain from over crowding the thread with unhelpful rhetoric or off topic matters. I realize this thread may be better suited to the PvP Forum section but I hope you can understand that the Community Council and Blizzard have turned a blind eye to those Forums for a long time. We hope that you will help us to keep this thread alive long enough for Blizzard to respond. If these changes were implemented would you consider dipping your toes into PvP from time to time? Let us know below. Thank you.
My hope and plea is that our Community Council even those not inclined to PvP will be willing to help the PvP community to have some of these issues addressed. I’ve seen the CC Forums page, the 2 or 3 CC Members who speak up about PvP issues hardly receive any input or traction on their posts and are ignored. We need help from all of you, to speak up on our behalf. Below are the primary issues plaguing PvP many of which would be so easy to fix it’s shocking they haven’t been tended to. I welcome feedback from anyone and everyone on the specifics and possible solutions. PvP really doesn’t need much, mostly just routine maintenance that has fallen by the wayside and a few quality of life adjustments and removal of a few exploits. I feel the majority of issues with PvP can be summed up in the categories below. Enjoy and please help us address these issues.
Click the topic to the right of the arrow to view.
Routine Class Tuning: DF Started Strong Then Fell Off + Button Bloat and CC Creep
Nothing will ever be perfect but if there are not personnel actively monitoring for overperforming specs all it takes is just one to ruin an entire season, we’ve seen this year after year, patch after patch. Either 2 or 3 Specs dominating the ladders are the intention or whoever has been in charge of oversight has failed. If flavor of the month style class balance is part of Blizzards design policy they should put out a blue post and let us know they haven’t failed this was actually the plan, they should also rethink that if it is their design philosophy. DHs and Outlaws are the flavor of the month, despite 3 or 4 failed attempts at nerfing DHs this just goes to show how little attention is given to Class Tuning or how out of touch the team in charge of it is.
It’s worth mentioning as well lots of players are off put by the staggering amount of Crowd Control, Slows, Snares, and Micro CC and Mobility that is causing mainly High Skill PvP to feel a bit sluggish. It is also worth mentioning a sizeable chunk of the PvP community has moved over to WoW Classic in part due to the always growing complexity of Retail PvP and the “Button Bloat Issue” where every class has an answer to everything, this issue is something of a matter of personal taste but I expect with the introduction of Hero Talents we will be hearing renewed outcry for Class Pruning and this is something worth considering when it comes to the future of WoW PvP, if we ever hope to draw in new players.
Elimination of Premade Groups Flooding Casual BGs and Epic BGs (There's a "Possible Solutions Tab" at the bottom of this tab, please check it out)
The Pre-made Epic Battle ground situation is getting out of hand. If there is a method by which WoW can be exploited we will find it and exploit it, this is our way. For those who don’t know Communities exist in WoW who create Full Groups for Regular and Epic BGs then split into groups of 5 and sync up their Que Times Via ingame chat, Discord, or 3rd party addons such as Battleground Commander. For context, I’ve always loved Leading Epic Battle Grounds, and have always wanted a Premade/Rated option for Epics, although I can see why it isn’t practical.
TLDR: Pre-made epics are a growing problem, Communities are stacking the deck, exploiting Que syncing loopholes and farming obscenely high honor levels at the expense of undergeared, less experienced players who aren’t running a 30+ man hand picked group in Discord. Every single Epic BG is untuned and no longer functions as designed, can Blizzard or our Community Council do anything to address this issue? This issue has already been addressed in WoW Classic, why can’t we fix the issue in Retail where it has existed far longer? Furthermore I suspect the existence of the Premades Communities as an option has actually contributed to the low engagement numbers with Rated Battlegrounds, and their abolition would result in higher RBG participation numbers.
For non competitive players and players just returning to the game or testing out new builds PvP scene casual Random Epic Battle Grounds are a great place to learn how to play and and in some cases are one of a players first interactions with PvP. Going against an 8 Healer 4 Tank Highly Coordinated Premade Epic and getting farmed for 40 minutes for honor, or getting Boss Zerged and finished in 3 minutes is a terrible way to readjust or get to know PvP. Half the team leaves after getting stomped in the initial go, nearly cementing the fate of those who stay. These Communities sometimes Snyc Ques ON BOTH FACTIONS only to leave just as the match is starting to ensure the already disadvantaged team has half as many players, as well as to enlist spies, and make deliberately bad calls to sabotage the other team. The PvP community has shrunk and is still shrinking and this is one of many cuts leading to it’s death.
Being experienced in leading Epics a Non-Premade Group with a strong leader can pull out a win over a Pre-made but this is an exception. Queing into a game against a Pre-made can essentially be a 30-50+ Minute time sink with a nearly guaranteed loss, or a 3min Zerge loss. Allowing this to continue is immensely disrespectful towards the time of the players, and rewards exploiters.
Complications and Possible Solutions To the Premade Issues
This issue has a lot of baggage attached to it since we’re talking about maybe 9-15 Communities with hundreds of members some having a presence here on the Forums. Some of whom seem to have beef with each other to the point where one guy has even been SWATTED from what I hear over their beef. I get wanting to play with your friends and how much fun a well coordinated Epic BG is since I’ve played in them and against them, these Communities are truly enjoying the game socializing and playing against each other as well, but it’s coming at the cost of an already struggling PvP community at large. This has been going on for a long time and the abolition of Premades will likely be disappointing for some players.
These Premade Communities despite how toxic some of them can be, can be tons of fun to participate in, it would be great if we can preserve any redeeming qualities they have because at their root the players want to have well coordinated Epics with actual rewards, unlike Wargames. 30v30 Wargames exist already for these communities to face one another we could increase the number to 40V40 and let them have at it. Furthermore perhaps we could increase the number of players in a group allowed to que for Random Epic Battlegrounds from 5 to 8 or 10, anything above will be routed to a separate que with up to 20 players allowed and will face another partial Premade group instead of a random fill. It’s time for Blizzard to turn their eye to the things that are harming one of their End Game Pillars, and get it sorted.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers on how to fix these but Blizz did it for WoW Classic. Some Pre-made Coordinators are running 3rd party addons to coordinate ques (these addons could be black listed). One Forum suggested allowing a 75% vote to end a game if they encounter a Pre-made to prevent getting farmed, I actually like this idea, could use some work. Even making Pre-made coordination a temporary bannable offense might be an option. Various Communities (you know, the “Not Guilds”) who can be easily named and identified, and Discords are being used to assemble these Pre-mades, not sure what can be done about this.
It’s worth mentioning that mixing factions for grouping would likely come close to eliminating que syncing and que time issues simultaneously but it comes at the cost of faction identity and RP-ability. I would consider this a last resort and hope it never comes to this.
Tuning and Scaling Epic BGs as Seasons Progress
As players grow in power Season after Season the NPCs, and Machines in Epic BGs become much weaker by comparison resulting in a need for Tuning and Adjustments. For some reason this most basic of maintenance issues seems to have fallen by the wayside resulting in mandatory cheesy cookie cutter strategies and 5 minute zerges that one must participate in or suffer a loss.
Alterac Valley - I can Tank Vaandar Stormpike with 0 towers down in AV and get a fast enough kill to win on a Zerg. Most games regardless of Pre-mades are zerge to the end cap 2 towers and GY and Pull, this needs to be tuned buffing this boss as Seasons progress would be so easy why hasn’t it been done?
Ashran - Backdooring the boss is a piece of cake and this game can be won by a single Tank while both teams are distracted in battle. It would be nice if we could rotate or randomize which event is up at the start of the EBG instead of always having to rush to ROC (Ring of Conquest) there are so many events and I understand we only have time for 1 but can we atleast mix it up?
Isle of Conquest - Capping Hangar at the start is the best strategy for victory, it out performs Work Shop and Docks even when held together. There are many ways to pull out a win over this but again those are exceptions and if a rogue ninja caps Docks even once the chances of pulling out said win become very slim. This is partly due to how easy it is to kill the Demolishers and Glaive Thrower machines since they also do not get buffed as Seasons progress. I can destroy a machine in 5 good hits, they just melt.
Wintergrasp - Defending team has a huge advantage and wins most games, perhaps reducing wall HP, and increasing tower HP could help? Giving defenders more time to wipe demos without getting ploughed. Perhaps reducing time needed to capture or recapture a Workshop for defenders, as well as buffing vehicle HP?
Address Botting in Rated Arena/ Solo Shuffle and Everywhere Else, as well as Carry Groups
According to many high rated PvP players Botting is becoming a serious problem in rated arena, with bots verified to be performing even in the 2400 bracket. If they’re climbing into the 2400 bracket they’re stepping on less experienced players below them, and sabotaging the efforts of anyone paired with them in higher brackets. Who knows what other game modes bots can be found in?
Carry Groups have undermined the merit of Rated PvP as a whole, I’m not sure what can be done about this issue since it effects all Pillars of Play, not just PvP, or even if anything should be done about it. However, quite frankly Rating doesn’t mean as much if you can buy it.
There are lots of players who understand this particular issue far better than I do and can better speak to the impact it has on PvP overall, I think it’s fair to say that because PvP is a competitive game mode Boosting and Carrying should not be happening at all. One thing I do know is that if the other issues on this list were to be addressed resulting in increased PvP participation the issue of encountering a Carry Group here and there would be much less of an issue.
Adjustments to Warmode Sharding both in Endgame Content Zones and Chromie Time
Warmode sometimes feels empty, I’m not an expert on Sharding, but I know there are people on other servers with Warmode on that I can’t see because they are on a different Shard. If we could manipulate Sharding to increase the numbers of players present in a given layer that would be great, a 25-30% increase in Warmode ON player volume would probably be perfect for Current Content Zones. Legacy Zones reliant on Chromie Time should probably have Sharding removed all together while both Chromie Time and Warmode are active. The old zones are an absolute ghost town while leveling, you might run into 1-3 enemy players likely not your level while leveling up to 70 via Chromie Time, and players do typically have WM ON while leveling since it’s faster, the issue here is Sharding.
World PvP Quality of Life Improvments Credits to Icesil, and Alphon for their contributions
- Faction Leaders have not been buffed since late BFA or perhaps early Shadowlands they are all officially killable by a single player with 0 buffs. Buff these leaders and add new incentives for killing faction leaders as well as defending them. Making NPCs such as Genn Greymane/Tess Greymane, Princess Talanji, (Someone for Boralus, maybe Jaina?) and any other faction leaders with no killable models hostile would be most welcome.
- Add a pop-up option to form 5 man groups in World PVP areas, much like the world bosses in the objective tab.
- Remove town Guard ability that nets players rooting them in place. This creates a highly exploitable disadvantage for melee and less mobile players. Coincidentally there are a few ranged and highly mobile classes with abilities that don’t even provoke the guards. The high HP, long chase distance and stuns are fine mechanics for the guards. Nets disincentivize combat in town for all players except for those who can consistently escape. Towns are not sanctuaries, the disincentives go a little too far.
- Bounty’s drop if you stay in a rested area for anymore then 3 minutes (people hide in town)
- Make it so five man groups are more likely to encounter other in-phase groups in Warmode, since currently small groups doing World Quests can dominate an enitre area
- Static flying mounts can now be dismounted by Dragon-riding whirls. Also increased range of wing shredder, and fix all bugs Wingshredder works about 20% of the time.
- Whirling Surge (Dismount) Cooldown reduced from 30 Seconds to 15 Seconds. This is one of the coolest additions to WPvP in years, it’s a shame in 3v1 aerial dogfight conditions the single player has little chance of counter play or escaping despite being the better flyer, after spending 4 Vigor on a dismount, flying evasively from multiple enemies is very chellenging.
- Fix the sharding for War Mode. Reduce the amount of available shards specifically for War Mode.
- Bring back WorldDefense channel (after fixing the issues with sharding)
- Incentive to keep War Mode on as opposed to an incentive for enabling it.
- Free for All mode for players who wish to kill both factions.
- Remove the extra layer of Sharding that Chromie Time brings. The scaling of the world for those in Chromie Time is fine.
Further Adjustments to MMR
It was like pulling teeth trying to get Blizzard to acknowledge that MMR needed to be adjusted to begin with and when they finally did it our hearts sang with joy. It helped, but a lot of the feedback I’m hearing is that some further fine tuning is required, high end players are still being matched with beginners and inexperienced healers are sometimes being thrown in way over their heads, creating frustration for everyone and possibly further disincentivizing healers from queing. But credit where credit is due, we appreciate you guys listening and making some changes! There’s still more work to be done!
Fix Level Scaling Down From 70 Into Below 70 Brackets The Stat Templates Are Way Too Strong, + Draenor Gear, Twinks and Premades It's A Mess
I was able to solo the entire enemy team on my level 70 Warrior scaled down to level 35, killing enemies in 3-4hits each, with AOE it was a massacre. Games start terribly mis-matched with 5 players missing on one team against a full team on the other side. There is 0 incentive to do this while leveling since it cannot compete with Dungeon Spamming as a means to leveling up. More on this later, I’ll be editing in info about every single issues in every single level bracket.
More players - Understanding Why Players Left to Begin With
WHAT’S BEEN CAUSING PVP PLAYERS TO QUIT FOR YEARS RESULTING IN LOW PARTICIPATION?
Ultimately the things that have been causing PvP players to quit for years and years are as follows.
FOR CONTEXT - imagine you’re paying the same price as everyone else but the content you like is handled as follows below.
- Same Reasons Others Quit - Poor Gear Acquisition Systems from Xpac to Xpac, Convoluted Borrowed Power Systems, Content Droughts, and Lack of Bang for your Buck in todays economy, Poor Narrative Choices effect everyone - cut content in WOD, Hastily Swapping from War Narrative to Lets burn down N’Zoth in a single patch as a little N’Zoth head inside N’Zoths head. SHADOWLANDS, I’d wager a lot of the PvP players we lost did more than just PvP (like me) and they left for the same reasons a lot of our friends did.
- Poor Class Balance - Blizz has never really been able to keep themselves from allowing a couple classes to either 1shot, overpower entirely, our outperform others in a small group or arena setting. It sometimes takes Blizz 3+ Weeks to catch on to a single class that’s actually 1shotting people or tripling DPS in arena or other content. This is likely due to a refusal to allocate resources to monitor these kinds of things or funding to actually fix them. Some class bugs that effect damage in PvP go un found and unfixed for months on months despite a plethora of players raising alarm bells that something is clearly wrong.
- Lack of Innovation - No new Battlegrounds for years, with BFA and DF you’d think we’d have seen a Naval or Aerial themed BG at some point, should have been common sense, but it’s evident they aren’t interested enough in growing this “End Game Pillar”. Nothing new or exciting since Seething Shore in BFA (which c’mon now.) except for BG Blitz and Solo Shuffle which they haven’t been bothered to work out all the kinks. Players were really excited for Solo Shuffle but for the longest time Blizz refused to address it’s early onset issues like people leaving and or going afk, the mmr issues and Que Times, to the point where players begged and plead for months then just quit. Now that they’ve tweaked things a little it’s just too little too late.
- Lack of Incentives - Some people will say the incentive to PvP is PvP itself and for me that’s enough and obviously for others just about everyone still playing it that’s enough but for the thousands of other players who had no new BGs, issues with Que times, Issues with mmr and watched for weeks on end or expansions on end as PvP was dominated by untuned classes 1 shotting, there were simply not enough incentives to stick around through that level of neglect, obviously or they’d still be here.
The Honor Level Prestige System has been forgotten with no changes since Legion. This system has loads of potential to incentivize new, returning, and dedicated players. - Premades in Casual entry level BGs and Epic Bgs - See the section above related to this subject.
- WoW Classic, longing for not only a simpler time where the lore was more their speed, Faction Conflict was more centric, and PvP was just simpler to play a sizeable chunk of the PvP community has shifted over to WoW Classic (I know almost all of my friends did). What lessons can we learn about how PvP was done in WoW Classic? STV Bloodmoon or similar would be awesome for Retail.
- Chromie Time - World PvP is a different beast but if you’ve ever leveled through chromie time with WM on you’ll know the odds of encountering another player are slim to none, not just because there are no leveling victims to gank but mainly due to sharding issues that go along with Chromie time that Blizz has never cared to work out.
- Warmode - to a much lesser extent effected the PvP scene but allowing people to opt out was a smart and healthy move it just came at the start of WoWs massive player count decline in BFA which has been steadily dropping ever since.
I could go ON AND ON but this was a death due to years and years of neglect, we’re still hanging on against all odds, but to what avail? Fixing these issues would take some time and effort but with all the money they’ve saved neglecting it for so long, they can justify getting started, and PvP will likely see a sizeable uptick in praise and participation.
New BGs and EBGs
New Battlegrounds and Epic Battlegrounds, enough said. Please, we’re starving. Naval themed like BFA and an Aerial Dog Fight for an opening bout, on theme for DF would be most welcome.
Consider adding an in game guide and maybe even a tutorial
Consider adding an in game guide explaining things like what other classes have in their tool kit (let them view other classes talent trees), Sample builds for PvP, Concepts like Pressuring healers, What is CC and how to Chain it?, Managing and swapping Cooldowns and movement abilities, Popular addons and Macros etc. etc. Perhaps even a brief optional tutorial, not unlike we have in the “Exiles Reach” starting area, that could help players learn to chain cc and identify what various classes damage bursts look like (Paladin Wings etc.) or a list of high priority spells to consider interrupting, how to secure and capitalize on kill windows with CC and coordinated bursts.
I’ve included these Forum links here to direct our Esteemed Community Council Members to this organized thread. Thank you for your consideration.
