I hit marshall rank back in vanilla. I 've achieved multi rank 1 arena teams during TBC and WoTLK. I’ve played a number of games with a PvP emphasis (Overwatch-hitting top 500 US, Apex, Starcraft, Counterstrike, etc.).
The sad reality is that WoW classic has one of the worst if not the worst PvP system I have played in a very long time.
Many PvPers that played back in Vanilla warned Blizzard that this mindless, unhealthy, afk/bot promoting PvP system needs to be scarpped. Blizzard, you didn’t listen. Why is that? The same scapegoat answer everytime: No changes.
The reality is we aren’t in 2004-2005, and even back then afking and botting plagued battlegrounds. You barely did anything back then, and even as a multi-billion dollar company now you still are doing nothing about it.
You recently showed that you are willing to impart some changes to Classic if things were going against the spirit of the game. (Alliance being able to premade AV while horde had to wait 1+ hr to get into a game). You applied 2 quick fixes and introduced party queue to AV.
However, you are still unwilling to do whats right in regards to this battleground. Balance the battleground. It has been shown numerous times that Alterac Valley is a terribly unbalanced map with the horde having numerous advantages (see run distances from caves to graveyards, unfair high ground advantage, easier map control, better placed towers, etc. etc.) yet you still are unwilling to rectify these mistakes from 2004 even though they are well documented.
Blizzard, you clearly demonstrated that you are willing to resolve some problems in Classic’s PvP system, and now its time to fix some more.
Rebalance the alterac valley map.
The second and only other battleground we have access to is Warsong, and although Warsong is a balanced battleground by design, it once again has exposed some grave issues with Classic’s PvP system.
Solo queuers and premades are queued against each other indiscriminately. In the modern era, this is utterly ridiculous, and astonishing that it’s been allowed to go on for so long. Once again the year is 2020 not 2004. You have learned how to develop competitive queueing systems (see Overwatch, Sarcraft, etc.). In the same way you modified the AV queue system, it is time to alter the Warsong and even AB (in the future) queue system. Solo queuers should be placed against other solo queuers, and premades should be placed against other premades. It is genuinely UNFUN to get constantly steam rolled while solo queueing, and it is time to change an archaic system.
Blizzard, It does not really benefit you as much with Classic being a successful game, but the PvP system is beyond horrible. You want to keep the cancerous ranking system the same? Fine. You want to let afkers and botters roam freely in AV fine. But for the integrity of the PvP system, please fine tune the alterac valley map, and in a similar fashion to what you did in AV, please introduce a new type of queuing system for the smaller battlegrounds (wsg and ab) where solo queuers go up against other solo queuers and premades can go up against one another.
PvP systems are designed around a 50/50 win rate. The win rate for horde AVs is almost 95% , and if you believe that is solely due to horde being better PvPers then you are truly out of touch. The same thing goes for the win rate of premades vs solo queuers in wsg, it’s insanely high and just flat out not fun.
Blizzard, the wsg fix is simple, and the AV fix is not that complicated (move spawn locations, change terrain slightly, open up the map more, etc.). People with some small amount of common sense knew that some changes had to be made in a 15 year old game. The problems are now compounding on each other, and Blizzard it is time for you to rescue the PvP system.
For those that may say, NO CHANGES MEANS NO CHANGES, you guys are so out of touch with reality there is no hope for you. If you care at all for the PvP system in Classic then you all should want changes that enhance the balance of this system. These changes are long over due.