It’s a real shame the current state of PvP in TBC.
I’ve put a lot more time into this post than I thought, and it’s turned out to be closer to an essay. I’ll break my grievances down as follows:
- The pre-patch dilemma
- Honor gain and queue times
- Arena points gain
- Respeccing
Let’s start with pre-patch. wowwiki-archive fandom Patch_2.0.1 says the patch was introduced on 5 December 2006. Patch_2.0.3 was released 9 January 2007. This is the well known 6 weeks of pre-patch. As we all know, there was no level boost, and no leveling of blood elves or draenei during this time. So can we please all drop this crap of “not in the spirit of TBC”, because you are clearly arguing in bad faith.
The pre-patch forced players to choose between leveling an alt and grinding honor. Sure, players made their bed and they should lie in it, but the point still stands that this is NOT TBC-like. We should have been given 6 weeks to farm honor and have more fun in Naxx with TBC talents, but instead we were given 2 weeks and told to either min-max our alts or min-max our honor.
Moving past this, the level boost facilitated the transfer of a large number of alliance players to horde, as well as brought in a lot of new players which overwhelmingly went horde (I have no data other than queue times to support these claims).
Let’s ignore both the not TBC-like pre-patch and not TBC-like level boost and move on to point 2, honor gain and the current state of blue PvP gear.
I am wondering why people are so vehemently against quality of life changes that will allow us to play the game we want. Almost all of the PvPers I have talked to on my server are debating even participating in instanced PvP content because of the queue times. Something needs to be done (other than a level 58 boost, because my time spent grinding to 70 is valuable, hello?) Either implement faction change or merc mode, but don’t sit here and give me this “you made your bed, now lie in it” crap. You cannot sit here with a level 58 boost implemented in the game and tell us “faction changes weren’t in TBC” is the reason I cannot reroll as a Human with all of my current progression. No, it’s because of what will tie into points 3 and 4. Players want a distinct gearing advantage. As it currently stands, any casual player that wishes to PvP on horde are left to a handful of options. From the most dedicated to the least they will:
- Run premades from the time they get home from work to the time they have to sleep. Assuming they can get one piece a week, they’ll be able to get half their set from bgs and half from:
- Arena in PvE gear and whatever pieces you scraped up from pre-patch and bg farming. We’ll delve deeper into the math of this later on.
- Don’t PvP
- Reroll
The blue honor gear grind is only the start for some players. Most players can’t even afford the respec cost to PvP. Dual spec at the trainer allows more players to enjoy PvP content, without having a large effect on PvE. Please give me a reason this is bad other than “not TBC-like”, because we know you are arguing in bad faith.
Because you know what else is not TBC-like?
We are not even using the same elo/mmr system as was introduced in TBC. I specifically remember being a pooper that would recreate teams at 1500 mmr in hopes that we get lucky in our 10 placement games so that we could end the week at 1600-1800 mmr. It was the only way for lower ranked players to get the full season gear. This method of getting points was literally removed from the game. How are people saying this is “TBC-like”?
Moving past me being bad (most people on the forums are) arena points are currently designed in such a way that the rich get richer. Some teams will have the full epic set halfway through the season, while some teams will literally be unable to complete the set. Some quick maths for you:
1125 (gloves)
1875 x3 (pants, head, legs)
1000 (ranged/class specific)
1500 (shoulders) [rating restricted at 2000]
3750 (weapon) [rating restricted at 1850]
=13,000 arena points (7750 if you remove the rating restricted items)
According to arenapointscalculator (use google) we can calculate as follows:
250 point per week = 1432, 1228, 1073
500 points per week = 1734, 1674, 1626
750 points per week = 1951, 1860, 1793
1000 points per week = 2260, 2066, 1960
1250 point per week = (not possible), 2465, 2177
According to wowpedia fandom PvP_season the first PvP season was 20 weeks. Let’s see how much gear each player will be able to buy assuming you play from the start of the season.
The Toilet Bowls like me
250 * 20 = 5,000 arena points. Not enough for even the unrestricted items. Your lack of skill and/or early grinding has led you to become cannon fodder for:
The Poopers like you
500 * 20 = 10,000 arena points. You’ll be able to complete your set around 15-16 weeks, not including rating restricted items. Hopefully you can afford enough gold to purchase a carry from:
The Lucky Poopers they’re either still grinding the game while reading this or play the game with their wallet
750 * 20 = 15,000 arena points. You likely grinded out all of your honor during pre-patch while working from home and afking in bgs, then all your marks by queueing with premades while off work hours. The other possibility is a spoon-feeding of raid loot. Assuming you can reach 2k you will complete your entire set, including rating restricted items, by week 17. You absolutely hate being disadvantaged in gear, so you always avoid queueing into:
The Select Few the exact same playerbase as the lucky poopers, but the higher end of the bell curve
1000 * 20 = 20,000 arena points. You’re likely laughing at all of the scrubs that thought honor gear alone would carry them into the 2k bracket. You face countless number of teams which are pugs in full resil gear against your 3s comp you’ve been practicing for years. 14 weeks is all it will take for you, but we all know you’ll be pushing to complete that set by week 12 or 13. It’s so great that all of your extra arena points will be turned into honor for next season! Like you’ll even need it. We all know who you’re going to queue dodge:
The Actual Pros you know, the guys participating in that tournament worth more than a Blizzard Developer’s salary
1250 * 20 = 25,000
These guys are buying their first piece week 1 and they know it. Some of them have already abused the season 2 gear from the vendors and locked their rating in for the week. Sure, the season 2 gear was removed, but any rating that was grinded out is locked in for the week. Some pros themselves will be avoiding queueing into each other in order to farm lower ranked teams/comps they know they can beat when they wish to go for a Rank 1 push at the end of the season.
As more lower rated players start to realize the gear disadvantage (or perceived disadvantage), they will lose incentive to participate in arenas.
The current system is just absolutely busted, and it’s a real shame that people are defending it. A lot of players just want an equal footing, while the select few are vehemently defending their gear advantage and calling it “skill”. It’s an absolute shame.
IMHO we should be getting the blue gear from rep vendors (as was introduced in a later patch, still more TBC-like than 58 boosts and the pre-patch dilemma) and the epic gear should be much more attainable for lower ranked players. The blue gear being attained from rep vendors will encourage more PvPers to PvE (as if the loot isn’t incentive enough), and give PvE players baseline gear when entering PvP.
My suggestions for the epic gear:
- Increase arena points received per week at all ratings by 250 (or some other flat amount). This allows everyone to get the full set by the end of the season, and makes the arena points to honor conversion at the end actually matter. However, this doesn’t solve the problem of late joiners. This leads to:
- Award progressively more arena points at all ratings as the season goes on. This allows us to keep a system more true to the original, while allowing late joiners to have a chance at gearing up before the next season.
- A completely novel idea, award arena points equivalent to the amount of mmr you gain once you are past a certain mmr, up to a cap. For example, every win past 1000 rating will give you arena points equal to the mmr you have earned, but no more than 50, up to a cap of 1000 points. Under this system, it would take you 20 games minimum to achieve the cap, and that would put you at a minimum of 2k rating. I’m sure there are many tweaks that can be made to make this suggestion better (raise the cap later in the season to allow late joiners to gear, allow very minimal arena points like +1 per win past the cap to keep higher rated teams queueing, better calculation for awarding points than just mmr gains to avoid team remaking, etc.).
Of course, changing the rate at which we receive arena epics will have drastic effects on PvE content that’s been farmed since week 1. To avoid this either: make the gear’s stats not work in instanced PvE content or only make the gear work in arenas/bgs. The former sounds like the better option, as the gear would be good in wPvP scenarios and is not meant for PvE.
I don’t know what the best answers are… all I know is this:
It’s a real shame that anyone under 1700 mmr has to essentially throw away season 1 and the beginning of season 2 in order to achieve equal footing in terms of PvP gearing.
It’s a real shame the amount of PvE care bears in here that want to abuse their first 3 weeks of loot rng in the “competitive environment” of arenas to have a distinct advantage throughout the rest of the season.
It’s a real shame the amount of PvPers that say “screw you I got mine already” by either dedicating their entire lives to grinding marks/honor or simply just abusing Blizzards incompetence, for the same reason as the PvE care bears. To have a distinct advantage throughout the season.
It’s a real shame, the absolute state of PvP in TBC.
TL;DR dual spec so more people will play arena and make PvP gear more attainable. Blue sets should be sold through rep vendors to encourage PvPers to PvE more (even though the loot is already incentive enough because it’s required to be competitive) and the epic sets should be more attainable for lower ranked players.
