The Death of Retail PVP

[Galakrønd-illidan]

They can implement the same thing they did with SOD, whe. 1 side was overhwelming the other faction, theu stopped all character creations,faction changes,xfers for that faction intil it balances out

[Bannagrim-bloodsail-buccaneers]

@Soullscape-sargeras

So i sit here with my copium watching all these cool new PVP elements being added to SOD,- Ashenvale, Stranglthorn, and more to come. I’m just here thinking, why cant we get events like that in Retail?

SoD as a thing is completely temporary, that’s why it’s a season. I think, especially for the pvp stuff, it’s mostly a testing ground before putting similar/inspired events anywhere else

[Drakulya-emerald-dream]

Pvp servers would notnsolve anything. Player balance is a player caused problem.

[Mafic-emerald-dream (Mafic)]

@Soullscape-sargeras

honestly believe the one thing that really caused the death of Retail WoW PVP is the loss of PvP servers along with the creation of Warmode. Warmode was great when there was a big push for Horde vs Alliance and player vs player being the general idea of the game, but now we all know its cute friendship and holding hands. Which is not a bad thing in moderation. I love seeing the growth of our favorite lore characters, but the general push away from the PVP aspect of WoW is quite depressing.

If blizzard were to create “Private” Servers on retail wow, for example (PVP, RP, Normal, RPVP) Maybe just a few of them. Those individual servers would fill up in a heartbeat. Not for the desire to escape war mode system by any means, but for the desire to be part of your own community.

Now I know what you all are thinking, “just go play classic…” I hear that all the time. I put all my time and effort and love into retail for the past 18 years. It may be just my opinion but I want the RETAIL version of the game to grow, not the old one. So i sit here with my copium watching all these cool new PVP elements being added to SOD,- Ashenvale, Stranglthorn, and more to come. I’m just here thinking, why cant we get events like that in Retail?

Hell Even if you were to implement a Rare Mount from Warmode Air Drop Chest or Bounty Satchel, you would have every PvE player turn on Warmode just for a chance to loot it.

There’s no carrots on retail anymore, just pure stick. Trust me I love a good stick, I do casual pvp for a living and still have a blast, but there’s nothing to fight for anymore. Even the most casual games when not participating in ranked or hardcore activaties have some kind of rewards, but there hasn’t been anything new added in the past 5 years for warmode.

I love this game I can make anything fun with all the activites there is to do, but its so easy to improve.

Well stated and you are a valued member of the WoW community. I agree with all of this and let me add that I do find it perplexing that older expansions are more popular with PVP communities.

But it is not just the issues with warmode and the loss of PVP communities. PVP actually is more transparent and makes ense.

Current retail PVP has too many hidden modifiers which makes it too hard for newer players to learn understand.

[Buchhojames-gurubashi]

Yeah good for you and thanks for keeping the thread going with your contribution.

[Geesus-wyrmrest-accord (Geesus)]

warmode is a fail , pvp minded players need their own servers , warmode you see 0 people advertising in chat to attack the city bosses, 0 people asking for people to join groups for bgs , 0 people asking to group up for world pvp , the pvp server i was on had all of this, warmode is just dead.

[Corvae-stormrage]

I think it died a long time before warmode. It’s always been kinda lame in WoW. World PvP in this game has long meant griefing other players. Corpse camping, guard massacring, and other “pvp” activities.

Back in vanilla we had some epic battles in the Tarren Mill area. Tons of people, lots of back and forth. Actual pvp, not capture the flag. I hate that planned crap. Just give us world objectives that are meaningful. Back in DAoC if you captured one of the realm keeps your entire realm got a bonus until it was taken back or reset.

If we had something like that, you can bet people would be pvping more.

[Kailhots-sargeras]

Has nothing to do with pvp servers.

It has everything to do with how convoluted pvp became. Required add-ons, ungodly amounts of keybinds, ECT.

[Sandswept-wyrmrest-accord]

This is a bit of a hot opinion but the PVP Incursions from BFA were a delight when there were people out there for it.

I can’t count the times where me and four buddies would roll up in there and start causing trouble; the Alliance would call for backup and steamroll us back with 15 people, then we’d come back with 25. Before you know it it was just an entire land war being fought which would potentially last for hours.

WPvP can be made relevant, but it’s just not in the cards right now I guess. And with the faction war seeming to come to an actual close, I don’t see big WPvP events coming back soon either.

[Torongar-earthen-ring]

Meh. I play shooters, or street fighter games to get my pvp fix. Wow pvp has always been a laughable meme. Gear scaling and removing resilience from pvp gear made it even more of meme. CC fest

[Bueførdz-wyrmrest-accord]

@Kaercha-area-52

Who would have guessed cutting off a piece of the game would cause it to shrivel up and die?

On yeah. Me. I said that.

You want to breathe new life into PvP? Have it give relevant rewards.

World PvP been meh for a long time. Even before the change. It didn’t help it just put the final nail in the coffin.

Not all of us PVP for rewards and gear. A good portion of the PVP community was casuals who just want to do a few matches a night and log off. Yea it would be great to have new transmog sets, but for the Love of God just make random Bgs static stats. The PvP community is also consuming itself. People are exploiting queue system by making
Trade chat premades. Yes it’s an MMO and you’re supposed to play with friends….yet this issue has gotten so bad that it’s killed casual PvP in classic, classic Wrath, and Retail. No version of the game is worth pvping at a casual level. Like it or not the casual community was always a majority of Wow. Blizzard has chased them all off and the Player base continues to chase off any casual that wants to come back. Look are how Meta chasing Classic modes are. lol my “Casual” guild in Classic was more strict than my raiding guild in 2004

Wow PvP has never been great. It’s always been an afterthought. I’m not surprised it’s in this horrible state. I’m just sad cause it was the only part that kept me playing wow from Cata-legion. BFA-DF I’ve come back just to see my characters and or gear one main to test waters. Balance is so broken and the game is bursty.

Retail PvP has a serious amount of problems. When I didn’t like high level PvP I would just PvP level an alt……you can’t even do that anymore. Why? Cause blizzard can’t seem to figure out how to make a level 70 the same scale as a 20 in a low level Bg.

[Lavo-bloodscalp]

Zero response in the face of history and basic business logic, as expected. Oh boy, only one of us thinks pvp servers are so popular they think forum bumps will help, lol.

[Lavo-bloodscalp]

Why is warmode dead? If world pvp were actually popular, why are pvp servers gone?

You world gankers had your chance but it turns out even you didn’t want to keep pvp servers balanced or continue to world pvp without ganking.

[Chogg-wyrmrest-accord]

The root of the problem is the philosophy of “I want to play with my friends” coupled with the fact that the balance people wanted on PvP realms was an IMbalance of something like 60-40% in favour of their own faction. Once you could faction swap, the walls were written on.

I LOVE world PvP, but when I came back WM had turned it into… Well, this.

[Fluffergyrl-dalaran (Fluffergyrl)]

Daddy Blizz killed PvP with thier inability to balance between the two and refusal to separate them. PvE only players like me will NEVER want to PvP, and are sick of specs being gutted because of PvP issues. Warmode was a great thing because I am nearly separated from PvP, with balance being the only sticking point. I long for a return to Legion PvP, since templates greatly diminished the effect of balance on PvE.

[Dactyl-shadowstrike-au]

WOW pvp died a long time ago. It was neglected for like a decade.

Back in WOTLK\TBC is was so huge and was just left to die for years and years. Even now look at the rewards\queue times\ Lack of Balance changes.

Too many macros and addons, Lack of rewards and balancing, long queue times. It will just continue its current decline.

[Kaercha-area-52]

Wow PvP (world and instanced) has always suffered because it was tacked on at the last minute. They never sat down to try and think about what makes playing it fun (or not), only how to minimize its impact on the “real” part of the game.

[Sasarai-blades-edge]

Or maybe people just don’t like it as much as you guys think?

Or the ones that like it already went to classic?

[Dactyl-shadowstrike-au]

Back in WOD holinka said in a dev interview just as many people queued for PVP as they did PVE so historically that is not true. It use to be popular, even more so in WOTLK and TBC when it was pretty big in the esport scene before it was called esports.

Wow was like the fortnight of the world back in WOTLK\TBC, Everybody was talking about it and it was in media. It was huge.

[Plokka-maiev]

@Lightstrider-benediction

What caused the death of retail pvp was people not wanting to do pvp

Yupp, it’s quite simple.
The majority simply doesn’t like PvP, and the fact that the few PvPers are upset that others prefer PvE is rather sad and probably one of the many reasons people don’t like PvP. The attitude of many PvPers is just not necessarily the best.