2’s and 3’s are seeing a substantial decrease in participation as your average player just q’s solo shuffle now instead of putting time into finding a team and grinding arena rating. A simple fix to this is to offer different rewards for doing well in arena vs solo shuffle. I’d suggest implementing 1-2 elite items at the duelist and elite cut off points such as 430ilvl pvp scaled shoulders/weapon. This would bring back the mmo aspect of being rewarded in power for progression through pvp content, while also motivating people to participate in all realms of arena not just solo shuffle.
Last xpac we got item upgrades every 150 points or so and it turned gearing into a massive honor grind while also creating huge disparities in gear between people at different ratings. While the grind was annoying, I personally enjoyed the reward of getting more powerful the higher rating I got, but can agree being a full 13ilvl more powerful on all slots was overkill. 1-2 elite item upgrades shouldn’t create gearing differences where you can rofl stop with your over geared toon, but will provide incentive to push rating in real 3’s.
What do ya’ll think of this?
A similar system exists in wrath and seems to be well liked.
Also before ya’ll just say you can’t get glad in solo shuffle, id like to point out that that alone is clearly not a big enough incentive to fix the current participation issues. Maybe duelist/elite cut off points for elite items would be to high to though and it could be moved down to 1800 and 2100 to target more participation from your average player?
6 Likes
That’d be a nice bonus for people who’ll get it anyways and a source of frustration for those who won’t. I’m not sure if there is going back in the short-term. Maybe next season they’ll fry shuffle mmr or something while propping 2v2 and 3v3 up.
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I mean every season there are people getting their first rival or duelist or glad. I just feel like it might provide more incentive not only for your multi glads, but also other players pushing their first duelist or just trying to improve. Imo being reward for progression feels good. It just becomes an issue when the rewards are too powerful and/or the rewards force you to grind honor to enjoy them.
What a lot of people didn’t like in Arena from BFA to SL was having higher item level tied to rating as this just felt like “gate keeping” and unfair advantages.
Most people that I know who are 1800-2100 stop after 1800 because that’s when they feel they’ve obtained all the cosmetic items they can.
The cosmetic rewards take too steep of jumps from 1800 → 2100 → 2400 → 3000+(Rank1s).
There needs to be a better reward structure from 1000-2700, and these ratings need to feel a bit more obtainable than they are today. =/
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They could either make rated 2s/3s earn more conquest vs shuffle - or, back in the day to force rbg participation, you couldn’t fully cap your weekly conquest (the last couple hundred pts) without doing rbgs. They could do something like that but there would probably be a lot of backlash 
If there’s barely any power difference, there’s not much incentive for RSS players to go into 3s.
If there is a noticeable power difference, then higher rated players will have a gear advantage over lower rated players, making it even harder to climb the ladder.
I don’t think Blizzard should force RSS players into 3s. Lower rated players would probably just not bother, and those who do try will have to go through the LFG experience.
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If they don’t there’s zero reason to que regular arenas outside of glad mounts (out of reach for most players) and it will continue to die in favor of RSS. It has its pros and cons but it’s similarly worked in the past. I think you underestimate even the average player and their drive to min/max rewards.
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Just don’t let RSS grant conquest points, only honor towards vault
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I’ll unsubscribe if this happens.
I have nothing against people who do 2/3s especially as someone who likes to casually play 2s here and there, but I hate LFG and I hate being forced to use it in order to participate in PvP.
They will never invest the time or effort to make a whole new item level tier after completely removing that whole system so I won’t address that part of your post, but just the idea behind it will kill participation in PvP even more.
Stop forcing people to play the dying arena modes.
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Why would they kill their new game mode? PvP participation is high only in shuffle because people aren’t forced to use LFG which is a terrible and time wasting tool.
You can’t force people to use something they don’t want to or they’ll quit the game all together like SL.
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People didn’t quit sl because of lfg
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See I Don’t think what I’m suggesting is forcing anyone into playing 3’s, its simply providing an incentive to play 3’s. Having 2-1 elite items ideally will not be game breaking compared to not having them. Yes It should provide a little advantage, but the advantage should be some what similar to have 1-2 BIS PVE items in your pvp set. I think 1-2 BIS PVE items have existed in pvp for a long time and frequently people get R1 and Glad without them. They ideally should not be needed to be competitive in pvp, but the slight power boost they do provide incentivizes people to play the content right?
People quit SL for a lot of reasons beyond PvP, arena is a very small portion of the game.
Part of what killed PvP is tiered gear sets for rating which OP wants to bring back despite claiming they didn’t like it either back then.
LFG is a trash tool, Solo Queue is the future and was needed years ago.
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Is the slight power boost noticeable or not?
If there’s no difference, there’s no incentive.
If the power boost is noticeable, then higher rated players will have an even bigger advantage over lower rated players.
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The problem really isnt the participation in 2s or 3s, its the way the rewards are given out. Being required to hit an arbitrary rating for a milestone is too difficult when the player base is low, and too easy when the player base is high.
Ideally they move back to the old system where its based on % of players above you. (completely made up numbers below)
Combatant 1 top 80%
Combatant 2 top 60%
Challenger 1 top 40%
Challenger 2 top 20%
etc, etc.
Then show the estimation of the next rank on the daily.
I think you missed what I said. I am not suggesting tier geared sets, Im suggesting 1-2 elite items gated behind rating NOT every slot. Very similar to how it was/is in wrath. IMO most people didn’t like the old style tiered gear set for 2 main reasons. It makes those with max gear vastly more powerful (13ilvl+) than those without it and there was a huge amount of grinding outside of just obtaining rating to even get your items leveled up.
Ideally these elite items would raise a player’s total Ilvl 2-3 points max and/or 2-3% increased player power nothing to game breaking.
Id also like to point out that 430ilvl gear already exists in the game and provides an advantage for those that go out and get it. I don’t see why its ok when it comes from high end PVE but not from higher rated PVP
Because anyone can get those high end PvE pieces, not everyone can get the high end PvP ones.
Even if it’s one or two pieces, it shouldn’t be in the game.
The current system is perfect, honor gear is easy to get and 2400 viable while conquest gear helps beef you up along the way and tier becomes BiS eventually for certain specs.
There’s no need to overcomplicate for the sake of reviving a bracket that no one really cares about anymore.
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Really everyone can down the last 2 mythic raid bosses? I know I certainly am in no position to do that.
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Eventually Mythic Vault will be easier to clear as more raid sellers grab up Heroic loot, I already see guilds starting to sell a mythic on Tich.
Rating is different.
Simply adding two pieces of conquest gear that won’t make a major difference in power won’t magically bring people back, no one likes LFG and less and less people are making groups for it daily.
The type of people that would min max and want to reach 2300 or whatever rating for those pieces will already have it as they’re the minority who still probably plays ladder 3s while most people continue to queue shuffles because it’s easier than the time it takes to climb in a dead LFG/dead ladder for 1 or 2 conquest upgrades.
1 Like