PvP participation seems to be on the decline, but I don’t think it’s because PvP itself feels bad. Honestly, I think Blitz is the main issue. SoD and HC WoW were already drawing players before TWW launched, but once Blizzard introduced Blitz, arena participation appeared to drop. Now, in the second season, it feels like it’s down across the board. Even some of the most loyal streamers are gradually moving away from the pvp scene, almost like it’s a trend.
What do you all think?
Queues are about 10-15 minutes, seems to always been people around. Its pretty dead before level 70 though.
PVP seems much the same from a casual perspective. 80% of games you’re owned or own the enemy team and the other 20% are even.
Lol, I wouldn’t still be here playing if not for Blitz.
PvP was already dead and dying since BfA and SL.
Shuffle was added in DF, and now official ranked Blitz in TWW, to stem the bleeding and let people play solo.
Nobody stuck around in premade Rated groups after one loss anyway, so Blitz is the next best thing.
Btw, I always hated arenas, so naturally I bounced from being forced to do them once we got solo rated BGs.
I always felt that Battlegrounds felt more like “Warcraft” than small Arenas ever did.
Blitz had a lot of appeal when it was first introduced last season, and it seems like many players shifted their focus away from the arena scene, which could explain the drop in arena participation.
Arena participation has consistently been low at the start of the season, largely due to rating inflation. However, I think Blitz has played a significant role in pulling players away from arenas, leading to poor participation overall.
When it comes to Blitz itself, I’ve noticed its participation seems to have declined compared to last season. Maybe the novelty is wearing off. Personally, I’m not a fan of Blitz—I find it flawed and frustrating in several ways.
It’s just concerning to see PvP participation dwindling lately, especially to the point where even longtime PvP streamers are stepping away to explore other content.
it will stay low as long as the pve gear sucks there.
had much better participation when you only had to switch your trinkets for a good time.
now if i got a lil pvp itch i gotta get a full set of pvp gear to even start having fun lol. pass.
I already think it ‘died’ back in BfA and SL, personally lol.
Solo Queue was just an admission that it was dead, and now we can continue to play, but it’s pretty much zombified.
Wondering when it’ll happen to M+ too, probably a few more years, but it’ll happen, sure enough. Same thing happened with PvP.
It was alive, then it wasn’t lol, and devs had to step in and give us our solo queue.
Shadowlands I had to quit because I didn’t have time to be forming parties to get conq gear - which was fortunately fixed in DF, but past that it’s still just a slog. It’d be an entirely different thing if gear didn’t go through yet another ilvl evolution in the next season, but that is what happens, so I struggle to play for more than one season.
I’m still below honor level 30 btw, which means queues are much much slower. And then there’s the war crate issue. 8/10 of them are taken by Ally, so slowly gearing up through those can barely be considered an option.
Then there’s our new ‘talent’ system, which I can only classify as absolute garbage. Look, I get why people didn’t like Shadowlands. Something something lore blah blah, but the covenant system was an actual CHOICE system. With our new talents, I can get literally everything. And they made it even worse in TWW. There’s pretty much no choices. You just pick everything and that’s that. Whoever designed our new ‘talents’ clearly didn’t understand what made them great long ago. It’s that there were CHOICES, but here you just pick 95% of what you want because there’s an overabundance of points.
TLDR; I play this game for PvP but between the constant gearing and horrid talent system, I struggle to play for very long every expansion.
I feel like PVP gear is easier to obtain than it ever has been. At least in a very long time.
To my point, something about TWW in particular has effectively been a nail in the coffin
I don’t know about arenas, but I noticed battlegrounds slowed when Classic launched. Can’t really blame some people for preferring to do battlegrounds there though. Depends on what you prefer.
It gets disheartening when half your team quits after the first setback. Makes you wonder if it’s worth bothering.
I’ve been an avid BG and Epic BG enjoyer for as long as I can remember, but I’ve been gravitating towards PvE here recently.
The lopsided games can get old, and I’m really just looking for a more relaxed play style that PvP just can’t offer.
That’s pretty much why Solo Queue was added.
Rated BG groups would just disband after one loss.
This is better, can just keep playing, as well as having entire teams randomized- the guy who smashed you last match might be getting smashed in the next round.
I heal, and I’ve had familiar faces on both my team and as the enemy.
I like that, lol. It’s fun to be remembered for being a good teammate.
Sadly, I find this to be the case in basically any PvP game I play.
It’s either a stomp or be stomped, or a close game (probably like 10% of cases).
WoW, or shooters, or MoBAs, same results lol. Even fighting games.
Balance in PvP with different classes and different player skill/ability, is hard.
Arena blows, bgb proves it since most rewards there are arena rewards and ppl went there instead
But bgb can be super frustrating itself
PvP in this game has no incentive for the less skilled players, thus the bottom keeps dropping out.
Maybe random bgs are an exception, because you really have no positive expectations going into it. But in rated PvP, the skill floor is unreasonably high.
I used to be an avid pvper but I don’t do it at all anymore because my basic expectation is to spend most of my time in wisp form.
So, about that, I want to share a story lol.
Apparently MMR doesn’t reset between seasons.
So, this guy, starting out in Blitz, I had like 228 rating and was being paired against 1800-2000 rating players lmao.
As you could imagine, I got dumpstered. Repeatedly.
At some point, it was like 2 wins, 11 losses, it was awful. This was probably about a week ago.
But it will balance out, if you keep playing.
Currently at 16 wins, 34 games played, 47% winrate, and it’s steadily increasing.
Also have had leavers about four times now (and one with an AFK), obviously those matches were toast.
TLDR - It feels extremely frustrating at first, but if you’re decent at battlegrounds, it’ll eventually break even and you’ll move up in rating.
Just the initial start is pretty bad, lol.
Same thing happened on another character as well.
WoW PvP is an extremely stressful experience without consistency since no one ever plays the same. It’s also not fun to fight for 5+ minutes going through CDs and walls waiting for oom or CD overlaps.
Healing is way too powerful and needs to be outright removed or nerfed by 90%. There’s no reason why a single healer should be able to keep a person alive with 4+ DPS using all of their CDs
I hate arena, so I would not be playing PvP if it wasn’t for blitz. I would do RBGs, but I get extremely anxious (palms sweaty while I try not to puke tier) when I am in a voice chat with people who aren’t my friends already when it comes to rated gameplay. You have expectations placed on you, and that puts a lot of pressure on me.
Blitz gives you random players and a chance to get your elite set/vicious mounts. That’s all that matters to me.
Try healing
I can barely heal in PvE, PvP would be a stressful nightmare LOL
Eh, the difference one DPS makes while using those power ups in BGs in insane.
If any DPS kills me, it’s because they were using power ups while the ones on my team weren’t.
Also, if you think full DPS battlegrounds are gonna be any different, well, they won’t be lol- they’d be just as stompy as what we have now with 2 healers on each side.
Probably even more so, because there’s no one keeping the lesser-geared DPS alive and in the fight. It’d be even more straightforward.
The geared will just flatted the ungeared.
I have more of a problem with DPS players ignoring the blatant 30% damage boost than anything else in BG Blitz.
At least if you’re undergeared, you can still grab the power up and kill someone with it.
Pretty much the team using Berserking will win more than the team that ignores those.