PvP tutorial zone

PVP Arenas
1

To facilitate teaching new players about Arena, Battlegrounds, and PvP in general, I propose adding a tutorial zone. This zone would have players in a BG or Arena with bots, and as the game progresses, would give information about abilities as they’re used, perhaps stopping or slowing the game for a moment to show exactly what’s happening (what the animation looks like, text explaining what the ability does, etc.) It would also include pointers about LoS, range, movement, and basic tactics. It could also include scripted chat between the bots to show what good team communication looks like.

I don’t think it’s always reasonable to expect that people stepping in to these for the first time have watched videos and read through forums to get the basics, and we definitely do not want people to walk away (especially from Arena) discouraged because they had no idea what was happening.

2 Likes
2

I understand the intention behind this but it feels severely out of date and I think it wouldn’t get used.

Being hard to get into is kind of just natural progression of an mmorpg that’s old enough to vote

Also the Internet and those that use it have changed a lot since WoW came up. You can watch thousands of hours of videos breaking down how to play each class perfectly general arena strategy ect and everyone that’s able to navigate to this post is aware of that and are watching it.

I don’t buy into the new player coming into WoW just hopelessly lost. Anyone coming to a new game in 2024 has YouTube and twitch pulled up and gets the information speed run going.

1 Like
3

How about a ranked pvp sharded zone where warmode enabled folks are lumped into a pvp hangout spot like the front of orgrimmar/stormwind used to be in older expansions?

I used to duel people on my realm and then we’d queue up together sometimes. I formed my RBG team in front of orgrimmar back in season 9 and we had the most fun dominating the battlegroup

PVP is lacking in the MMO-world department. Everyone just afks somewhere between queues these days and we need a dope spot to chill and shards need to be combined across more realms so you can see the big Tich boys while you’re on some dead realm.

2 Likes
4

I have yet to play an mmo that didn’t require googling to be more competitive

if any wow player can figure out when a weaver is going to 100-0 them in gw2 or what to trinket vs a NB in eso without googling I’ll give them my left over slimjims (at least 2)

if anything wow is pretty generous given that the majority of murder buttons are fickin obvious (warbreaker, wings, meta, combooost, orbital strike just to name a few) :slight_smile:

5

I think that this would have been great if done somewhere between tbc and cataclysm [e.g., the first few expansions where arena was being developed], but at this point, it isn’t even reasonable for pvp-mains to expect this to ever happen.

As others have said, a major deterrent to getting into wow pvp is the age of the game [e.g., personally, I’m deterred from playing many games simply because I know that I have to play against others that have been playing the game for years and years, and the potential reward I might get from “getting gud” at the game at some point just doesn’t outweigh the time and effort that I would have to commit to learn and catch up to their level].

If the game is simple enough I might jump in years down the line sure (e.g., games like fortnite no build, pubg, counterstrike, etc.), but if the game involves dozens or even hundreds of characters/specs and abilty combinations that I have to learn [e.g., LoL, Smite, WoW, DOTA, etc.], I’m just going to take a hard pass unless for some reason I am in love with the game to a point that makes the learning process worth it, and/or if my irl friends are playing the game too.

Lastly, from a business perspective, the pvp playerbase in terms of pvp-mains is such a small fraction of the overall subscriber base that it would make zero sense to commit who knows how much time/money/resources to developing this portion of the game [e.g., what business is going to spend time and money to heavily cater to 1% of their customers over catering to the othe 99%?].

Having said all that, I hope that I’m wrong and would definitely enjoy seeing wow pvp get some much needed love, whether it be tutorials, new maps/bgs, rewards, addons/weak auras made part of the base game, etc.

6

This is a psychological blunder

What’s the skill difference between a 1400 player who started 2 years ago, and a player who has been 1400 for 10 years?
There’s none.

The entire function of a rating system is to put you against people of similar skill over time, so the whole idea of “starting too late” is null

get in the arena champ I believe in u

7

I’m not talking about avoiding games because I’m afraid of how long it would take to compete against the lowest percentile of the game.

That point is with respect to the highest percentile [e.g., people who are multi-r1, multi-glad, duelists, etc., are in most (if not just about all) cases people who have been pvping in wow anywhere from several years to nearly two decades, so outside of the rare exception of X player being a prodigy, you are generally safe to assume that it would take the same (if not more) time to reach those levels (probably more time tbh since the game has become increasingly more complex over the years due to macros, addons, button bloat, etc.)].

Call it what you want, but I’m pretty confident that others feel the same way [e.g., the reward(s) to be obtained through committing years-decades of time and effort towards wow pvp (or other largely complicated games like LoL, Smite, etc.), are just not worth it in the majority of cases]; [e.g., in most cases, X player would rather jump into a new or relatively new game (also one that is actually popular/thriving) so that they don’t feel so far behind in terms of knowledge/experience/etc., not a roughly 20 year old game that will require you to get destroyed for years on end before you can even think about becoming good enough to compete with the “big” boys/girls].

I’m sure that there is a subset of players that are so casual that they are content with playing and losing the majority of their games, but that isn’t (and wouldn’t) be what I call a fun time [e.g., I wouldn’t touch fortnite with building with a 10-ft pole, because I feel that I would need a PHD in strategically induced seizures to ever win more than 1 out of every 500 games]; [e.g., trying to think about wow pvp as a new player, the idea that I need to install 5-10 third party addons/weak auras, memorize and learn 50-100+ keybindings, catch up on years of class/spec/ability game knowledge, get dunked on for who knows how long in the process so that maybe by the next expansion I am good enough to get a skill-based reward, etc. would be daunting to the point of just thinking “yeah, my time is worth more than that, no thank you”].

The bottom line is that the rewards/outcome need(s) to justify the time/effort required.

Maybe an easier to understand irl example:

I wouldn’t want to spend 8-12 years in school + acquire X amounts of debt if the endgame from that wasn’t me making significantly more $$$ than the majority of those that don’t.

That’s not a psychological blunder. That’s just psychology, and exceptions don’t disprove the rule [e.g., while I’m sure some people become Proctologists because they have a sincere desire to help people, so much in fact that they donate most of their earnings to charity, this isn’t going to be the case for the majority of people (most are only going to be willing to endure 8-12 years of school + acquire X amounts of debt because they can make significantly more $$$ than other people after it’s all said and done)].

What is the end game after committing years to learning and catching up in wow pvp? An 1800 transmog, a mediocre weapon enchant, a glad mount, a minimum wage salary upfront if you win Blizzcon? It certainly isn’t going to be anything that really elevates your status in life, at least not until Blizzard makes prize pools big enough for the players to live on.

1 Like
8

If someone isn’t going to take the time to learn using resources outside of the game, I doubt they’ll pay attention to the tutorial.

2 Likes
9

There is no better tutorial than joining a bg getting one tapped, getting honor, buying gear and slowly feeling stronger. You start key binding and READING your skills, you look up a L337 youtube video guide and bam you are set to begin pvping. Thats how many did it before and I feel its still the best. No tutorial will show a player everything they need to experience themseles

10

Today I played with a rogue from LFG who had 3k achievement points and never has played arena. We played for a few hours and he just kept asking questions.

Thats the best way to learn imo, is just doing and asking questions. New player needs to just find knowledgeable players in game and ask them random crap. Most people would be okay with sharing their knowledge.

Guide are usually poorly written, out of date and are just walls of text. They aren’t much help imo. And any tutorial simply wouldn’t be enough to teach the vast amount of information needed.

1 Like
11

So normal arena then

1 Like
12

This is ideal and I agree the best way to learn. Unfortunately the game has devolved a lot over the years.

I can only imagine a new player now trying wow arena, specifically one that isn’t being brought into the game by friends.

1st – they watch some streams, youtube vids, etc., read some guides, get geared, etc. (e.g., the easy stuff)

2nd – they queue for shuffle, experience a miserably long queue if a dps, get dunked on, get discouraged mainly by the queue time, then stop playing arena

Alternative 2nd – they queue for shuffle as a healer, some toxic pos tells them how bad they are after they lose 1-2 rounds, they get discouraged, then stop playing arena

3rd – they decide to give premade arena a try. they find a team using lfg. they sign up explicitly putting a note in that they are new, someone queues up, team breaks apart after 1-2 losses (most likely scenario), they get discouraged, then stop playing arena

There is an alternative 3rd, where they vibe with the partners they teamed up with, but let’s be real, that is rare nowadays.

All I’m getting at is that regardless as to what the proposed solution(s), wow arena isn’t going to get any meaningful amount of new players outside of the current players persuading their friends to get into it, and will most likely at best get a drip feed of new players that try it, get discouraged, and move on when they realize that the rewards aren’t worth the time and effort.

The only thing that will save wow arena is to straight-up stop pumping out the same game with new reskin every 2 years, and actually do “wow 2” (or whatever you want to call it), and start it off where addons are not needed to make the pvp functional/tolerable (and make the pvp feel like a meaningful aspect of the game outside of collecting 2-4 cosmetic items and some titles/achievements).

I’m not saying that the way arena works necessarily needs to even change fundamentally, but a new version of wow that isn’t tied to this one is needed if there is to be any hope of attracting new players (and by new, yes I mean that you won’t have access to all the mounts, pets, etc. you’ve been farming for the last two decades, outside of accessing them via era servers).

1 Like
13

they should bring back brawlers guild but revamp it to be a pvp area, i know in BFA they tried to add the duelers guild or w.e but i guess no one wanted to really do it (maybe the rewards just sucked i cant remember). maybe use the brawlers guild rank system but its based off of winning duels or something dynamic.

they could add a weekly reward to win X duels in the the brawlers/duelers guild instead of like the weekly bg honor/skim honor quests and then more people would be present.

in that area they could have a bunch of npcs that explain stuff like DRs or maybe class trainers that you could talk to and learn about other class/specs CDs and what classes they pair well with vs ones that counter them. class trainers could even tell someone what are good CDs to trade or something. but i feel like this would require a UI overhaul so players could more easily tell when others pop CDs without the need for addons and WAs

1 Like
14

Idk man I think people just gotta jump and in and do it plus ask for help and advice.

I recently started playing dark and darker, which isn’t really that complicated of a game, but I’ve had some relatively experienced players friend me and teach me the ropes.

I think reaching out and asking for help is a large part of the human condition; and it makes things easier/better.

15

would also be cool if they added in a mentor system where veteran players could help new pvpers learn the game and queue with them. maybe when you do this you are able to create a copy of your character that can be used only for doing pvp content and lasts 24 hours, and whenever you want to mentor someone you just dup your current toons gear over, just like how you copy a toon on the PTR. they could make it so it matches the cr/mmr or the person your helping or something

maybe add a seasonal title for the main character your dup is made from, like “Coach” and base it on hours played with ppl looking for a mentor or games played. could add in rewards like a referee uniform or whistle, maybe some sport inspired toys or something, and just recolor them every season so that way the veteran players are encouraged to take some ppl under their wing every season.

id do it… Coach Lakeshark sounds cool. i mean hell i already do free LFG carries later in the season for healers lf 1600/1800 push its pretty fun plucking someone out of LFG hell and helping them.

1 Like
16

I agree, but getting them to seems to be an issue. We’d all like to see the pvp scene get injected with thousands or even tens of thousands of new players, but outside of a new game (not just a new expansion) + substantial resources being dedicated to develop the pvp portions of the game, I personally just don’t see it happening. I just don’t think Blizzard (or Microsoft) cares about doing anything for pvpers outside of the bare minimum to keep them subbed, which is evidenced by their current successful formula [e.g., each season, give em a new armor transmog, enchant, and glad mount each season, oh and a new r1 title, and then call it a day = boom = most of us hopeful suckers sure enough stay subbed throughout most or all of the expansion].

Why would (or should) they do more when that is enough (from a business perspective)?

I agree with this too, but unfortunately that part of the human condition is often overshadowed by another equally large (or probably larger) part of the human condition; the part of the human condition that stems from internet anonymity, where people become intolerable toxic manchildren (nicest thing I could think of to describe them).

1 Like
17

I think final fantasy does something like this, although not specifically for pvp.

1 Like
18

I def agree with pretty much everything you said. Getting people interested enough to want to learn is something blizzard needs to focus on.

Toxicity is also a problem. I myself can be very toxic and it’s something I’m working on. Not sure, but maybe there’s a solution to that problem.

For me, I just have to mature and learn how to be more respectful. I’m not sure how the community/game as a whole can be fixed. Maybe continue with chat bans and suspensions?

2 Likes
19

This is one of the few well thought out & succinct points on these forums. The nucleus of the issue with WoW PvP, particularly rated PvP & their prestige rewards, is:

1.) The UI is not intrinsically built, moreover, inherently designed for the user to be “successful” in that game mode. That means you don’t win in arena on a default UI with no addons if you haven’t PvP’d for years & know what’s happening. Let’s not even discuss keybinds and requiring an addon (myslot) to save keybind/actionbar settings.
2.) You currently require at least a B.S. in Computer Science to configure some of the arena/PvP addons or you can get lucky & google them or you get to pay SkillCapped. Maybe beg a streamer? Even then, you have to know every single buff or debuff in the game.
3.) The information required to make the best decision in the moment is either not available in the UI or is not visible. [e.g., Diminish for DR tracking on YOU, your team, and the enemy team particularly available on the nameplates]
4.) There is no current game mode that “prepares” new players or even PvE players to PvP. Skirmish is a dead game mode. RSS is a hilarious choice with hilariously long queues because healing in this game mode makes you wanna drag your (medical term for ballbag goes here) through glass & concrete. All I play is healer FYI! I currently have every healer CR at least rival and Priest much higher except Pres evoker…that’s another topic for a different time!

If you fix the UI & populate a unrated playlist with prestige (so people will play it), you will see a lot more new players, new PvPers, and gladiators!

Yep, that simple!

That’s it. That’s the post.

3 Likes
20

pvp tutorial zone would have chinese boosters spamming screen blotting texts in it for 2400 boosts no doubt. unless its 100% personal instanced theres a possibility it could happen. but typically pve’rs should dip their toes in since its basically their m+ rotations plus cc right now lmao