It is and it’s a known problem. Arena Casters like Venruki have made videos on why it’s so bad and have proposed possible changes. The stats are known.
Solo Que and no gear reward removed the reason for most PvP players to Que for 3’s. They aren’t forced to do it anymore so they don’t. They rather enjoy the other aspects of PvP.
MMORPG PvP. There is a reason why we have factions and why Classes are designed around “Large scale” battles. This is why 3’s Arena never worked and CAN’T work cause it’s a mini-game that can’t be balanced and doesn’t fit into this genre.
Which is why it should of been abandoned and BGs, WPvP, Brawls been highlighted since that is what this type of game is about. It’s why we got into MMO’s in the first place. It’s what the majority of PvP players are looking for. Which is why there is no interest in Arena and it’s annoying that Blizz focused on it for money and Esports. (which hurt the game)
Arena is a terrible design for this genre that has never worked. 2v2, 3v3 will never work for an MMO. They should focus on what this game actually has to offer as an MMORPG. Look if you like Arena fine, it’s just a mini-game that shouldn’t have any balance around it though. Hardly anyone cares really.
Again Arena is a fine mini-game but it’s just that. A small part of an MMO that really is a mini-game.
Seems like it works. But as you say, I guess participation is kind of low at the moment.
I feel like there are several players like me, who at least at various points in their WoW playing aren’t interested in any other aspects of the game other than arenas.
I do t think abandoning Arenas would help much there. I do appreciate that some people don’t like RPG elements in PvP and vice versa.
I feel like you could say this about literally any aspect of WoW and it would be no more or less true.
Arenas are just one of several things people can take part in sometimes or as the major or sole focus of their gameplay, like raiding, farming, leveling, dungeon grinding, etc.
It doesn’t work though. The Classes aren’t designed for 3’s combat. They are designed for Raids. That is why they try and fail at massive balance to try and make it work. Dampening is a prime example of a bandaid terrible mechanic in place to try and make 3’s work. It’s doesn’t.
Some Classes have abilities nerfed by 50 or 80% in PvP. It doesn’t work. Nothing should be nerfed, there should just be a platform for where you don’t have to do that. Which is why Arena is a mini-game you have to do extreme balance to change it from the core game. It’s bad for an MMO.
Period.
RPG PvP (gear based PvP) is why we are here. We love gear progression and want to play games with it. If you remove that there is no reason to log into WoW. That is why Templates massively failed because they removed the RPG aspects of the game. The Devs admitted it and removed them.
Wrong because the core of the game and Classes are designed around RPG aspects and large groups. Not for 3’s or 2’s or dueling. Look those activities can be fun but we shouldn’t put effort into trying to make them balanced or work. Cause they can’t.
The majority of PvP players don’t though. Arena makes up a tiny % of the PvP player base. If you want Arena participation to go up you need to pull players from the much larger PvP player base that does BGs, WPvP etc.
I highly doubt that. We don’t have any numbers to support either claim, but BGs have never been like by the majority of pvp community. The only time was during Cata and the honeymoon stage of RBGs. Until that was figured out and people only built comps per the meta.
The PvP/BG player base dwarfs the Arena player base. How is this not painfully obvious? It’s usually 20, 30 times bigger then Arena or more depending on how low Arena participation is. Arena at times have been in the 10,000’s of players while the BG players base in in the 100,000’s of players.
At no point in history has there ever been more Arena players then BG/WPvP players. The goal of Arena was to try and attract players from the much larger PvP player base by dangling Elite gear in there. To get them to participate.
There is a reason why the first Arena achievement is step foot into Arena. However most PvP players never get it and could care less. Arena participation only ticks up cause of rated gear and once that was removed people stopped Queing Arena. You weren’t forced in there anymore.
Meh, id probably never to rarely do bgs unless i had to for honor. Arenas are the only way. If they went away, i definitely would move on to another game.
It shoulda got its own attention beyond an afterthought to pve, and further developed beyond 3 core mechanics (CD’s, DR’s, LOS) over the years. 20 years of the same mechanics. By now it coulda had a few more aimed skill shots, or more conditional abilities (only castable from behind, or distance, or height above/below, or only during some incap or poly that breaks on damage etc). Maybe different synergy abilities active between class pairs. Iunno maybe these examples are bad. I’m not a game designer. Some of these already exist, sprinkled in here and there like gouge/backstab. Pretty sure there’s lots of stuff they coulda gone with…
But instead they opted to make every class homogeneous with a million cds and selfheals and crap, infinite flashes and closers to the point where every class is everywhere at once, just pumping nonstop rotation like an ARPG. All still within the same confines of the same 3 mechanics since the beginning (CDs, DRs, LOS)
I much prefer BGs over arenas and feel like blizzard ruins the game for their dumb esport delusional ideas especially when its so obvious they balance the game only around their favorite little twitch streamers classes and all other specs they make permanently dead.
He might be referring to the RBG population which doesn’t exist in Wrath, but still if he is referrig to that then it would make his statement some what correct.
Retail is gettimg solo que bgs/brawls. They ate just testing it on 10.2. Honestly i hope solo que comes to cata. I lnow its not ideal for 3v3 arenas but it will be a bracket that does not have boosters and will allow me to que whenever i want as its difficult to find partners in wotlk