WoW PVP combat just isn’t fun. It’s all CC and ridiculous burst damage combos and not being able to actually play the game. BGs can be interesting because they have things that aren’t combat, like ninjaing points when the other team isn’t looking, but the actual combat part of it just sucks.
Think it’s just all the constant crying and hostility that goes on, especially in solo shuffle.
PvP itself is perfectly fine.
Actually, it’s amazing. The combat, the way it feels, the interaction of spells and abilities—it’s smooth.
As far as the balancing goes, it is fine. Sure, there are some specs that lean towards the top and others toward the bottom, but any spec has the chance to thrive in the right hands.
What, then, is the main issue?
R.E.W.A.R.D.S
There are no rewards or incentives to sort of plug the PvP experience into the MMO side of things.
PvP feels more like a lobby based matchmaking mini game slapped onto the vast world that would and should be an MMO.
Instead of PvP living in harmony and intertwined with PvE, it feels separated, and it shouldn’t be.
Therein lies the problem.
PvP should not be separate from PvE
Why are we all playing this game instead of say Fortnite, Valorant, LoL, StarCraft, Apex, or any of the other thousands of lobby based matchmaking games out there?
Because we all remember the days of classic WoW, where we experienced the harmony of PvP and PvE working together.
And that, in a nutshell, is what World PvP essentially is.
PvP wasn’t just me pressing a button, getting into a lobby, and waiting for a match to start, in order to start whacking people for the sake and purpose of…well…. Whacking people I guess!
PvP was me trying so hard to get some really good 2 handed axe from a treasure chest at the end of some fun and riveting quest line, getting killed by a horde, calling for backup to get him, and then obtaining that 2 handed axe that would make me strong enough to kill that horde by myself next time I saw him.
That is the example of the union between good PvP and PvE—notice how there are elements from both in that paragraph.
It can also work the completely reverse way. Getting some good armor or weapon from a PvP encounter, maybe in a battleground or killing a capital city boss, and then being able to use that in a raid.
It makes you want to explore both aspects of the game putting motivation into each, while having so much fun doing so.
Knowing that what you take from one is completely relevant in the other.
As it currently stands, in PvP there is no reward whatsoever.
If I achieve rank 1800 in arena I get no upgrade, gear, weapon or otherwise that would put me over those who did not achieve that milestone.
Cosmetics such as transmogs, weapon skins, titles, mounts, pets and achievements have all but replaced true rewards. And this is the most critical issue the game is facing.
Everybody can get the same base line gear that everyone else has with just a mere 2-3 weeks of grinding for it.
There are no longer any great heights to aspire to. Everything is one big plateau with the illusion of mountains in the distance as part of a grand skybox
The real problem the game faces manifests almost as a form of communism—wherein things once meant to be worked for and achieved by the few who could are handed out like candy to all players, thus trivializing them.
There is no more scarcity, and thus, no more value.
Gold is trivialized via the wow token and so, by association, is any gear, weapons, enchants, etc that are bought with gold.
I often think of games like Dark Souls, and how exciting it would be if one day that world became an MMO. Having the challenge of everything that is that game with such the rich vastness of all that armor, weapons, abilities, different mounts that make you ride faster.
Everything has such meaning and purpose in these single player story driven games. For some reason, in WoW it must necessarily break down so as to be unrecognizable.
Imagine if, in Dark Souls, I received a piece of armor that added no stats whatsoever—no strength, dexterity, agility, defense, and all the rest of it. How useful would that piece of armor be? Would I really go out of my way and spend hours, weeks, days or even months trying to kill that next boss if I knew that piece of armor didn’t make me any stronger—
Yet this is what we get almost exclusively in WoW. Everything is templated for us.
Imagine if in Dark Souls, they took gear completely out of the equation—that is to say, they got rid of all stats and that whole system went down the drain.
Every time you got to a boss, the game auto decided for you how strong you should be in order to create a correctly tuned, believable and formidable challenge.
Technically, that could work.
But that would be no where near as fun as having the choice and agency and the vast world of options and play styles to choose from that the entire world of stats and armor and weapons and types creates for the player.
And that, is the primordial spirit underpinning a great MMO
I just realized that the price of “victory high” is negative emotions and stress. I end up being more tired and annoyed after the session than before. It wastes energy instead of helping replenish it. I only do it for conquest.
Ironically, I somewhat started enjoying solo shuffle more after I disabled chat. This way I can concentrate on just gameplay and ignore any social pressure. Most of the time it’s just negativity anyway.
I think big problem with WoW is that it mixes players of different skill levels too much. It needs to have some player based matchmaking in addition to character based matchmaking. So that if you’re new with 0 rating, it should match you more with new players with 0 rating, and less with fresh alts of someone who has 2000 rating on their main character.
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in the olden days you could progress even in a loss, albeit slower, now you’re just fodder for abuse and you get nothing…
and we wonder why its toxic?
Because there has rarely been a time when I have enjoyed PvP?
I know, you probably dont want to hear from good ol’ PvE player me. But if there are rewards for PvP, they have rarely been interesting enough to tempt me.
I use to pvp a lot back in Cata. Now it is just too complicated for me, too much cc, gear is dumb and to be honest, I’m just pretty bad at it.
I’d love wow pvp to be as simple as OW
I heal in PvP, and the smaller the group, the worse it is for the healer.
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PvP gets me so anxious I almost vomit, due to pressure. Unless I am practically being carried, too much anxiety.
If people would stop saying “learn to heal” whilst OmniCD shows they have everything available.
Not my to my liking but if you like so be it.
Pointless.
The barrier to entry is so high that its not worth doing.
I could find more balance in a CoD lobby vses any champion player.
I enjoy PvP, but imma play something else if I inspect my team members and they’re in PvE gear or PvP gear from last season.
Those folks are just fodder, and unless the enemy team has fodder players as well, it’s not gonna be a fun time.
I miss Legion templates for that reason.
Some players that queue for PvP can’t even be bothered to talk to the honor vendors, apparently. Or some M+ player unaware of the PvP iLvL gap.
PvP needs iLvL requirements, force people to buy honor gear.
I don’t get why Dragonflight normal/heroic dungeons have an iLvL requirement, yet PvP you can go in naked and drag the whole team down.
PvE favoritism, lol. Not exactly surprised, though. Getting our first battleground in years, next expansion. Neglected.
TLDR - I enjoy it, but the noobs are kinda ruining it for me lol. At least Brawl has been fun, and I’ll likely try and stick with Rated to alleviate my woes.
I’m not a competitive wow player, I just play for fun. I’m not very skilled and fear I would either disappoint a team or find myself in the lower tier serving as ratings fodder.
Uh, lack of collision and vertical gear progression ensuring I can’t really be an effective team member does it for me.
I never have good enough gear.
16 years of rogues running through me, mouse turning 180 degrees then stun locking me is a stupid meta. I stopped pvping back in wrath after someone got irate that I was 0/8 . . . in quest greens. No kidding the interaction was so bad I never went back.
I did a few bgs on my mage a few months ago, but that was only for marks and because our side was just steamrolling even though I was mostly dead weight. When you unload your entire kit on someone and don’t even take them to half it kind of destroys any feeling of meaningful participation.
And I don’t like failing up, which is apparently how it’s supposed to work. I’ve never been able to stomach being a free kill for days or even weeks until the game gives me enough gear to actually be effective.
When I want to PvP I’ll download SMITE again. You know, a dedicated pvp game that doesn’t have any of the bs I mentioned.
A variety of reasons.
They got rid of templates, for one.
Personally I have always played around the 1800-1900 MMR range. Getting to 1500 was always pretty easy for me but then it just becomes an annoying game of ping-pong trying to get to 1600.
Getting groups ready is time-consuming. Finding someone in your rating range isn’t always easy because they might not be a class/spec that synergizes with you, they might be a sweaty expecting you to have 2.2k experience, they might be a sweaty who is actually bad at the game and is expecting you to carry them, or you might get someone who is just flat out terrible at PvP. You lose one match, they rage quit (and might rage whisper you as a bonus) and then you’re back at square one.
Solo Shuffle is a complete zugfest. If you play a healer, get ready to be scrutinized for every perceived micro-inefficiency you apparently committed during each match by DPS mains who have no idea how your kit works. If you are a DPS player, have fun sitting in queue forever because no one wants to play healer.
Players who break all of your CCs.
Players who refuse to use any defensives.
Players who refuse to use any semblance of line of sight.
Players who refuse to gear themselves for PvP (which goes back to the removal of templates).
And despite all that, I always found arenas to be far less enjoyable than battlegrounds because I have enjoyed games with larger-scale numbers where each side has to (try) to coordinate. However, there’s little incentive to play battlegrounds, and this is indicative of how much BGs belch out honor points for you - it’s to get you geared for arenas as quickly as possible, because that’s what Blizzard focuses on. I haven’t tried the new battleground blitz yet but I’m interested to see how a solo-queue RBG system would work since RBGs as a whole are, for the most part, dead content.
I dont enjoy arena because of pillar humping.
PVP is fun, just arena is so try-hard and sweaty that you get practically zero fun out of it, and It’s impossible to begin to get friends into it.
There is no reason to PvP in the game if your primary focus is PvE. The mode is completely optional at this point. Most PvE players won’t seek out PvP unless there is some character power to be gained. The elite set is an okay reward, but it is too hard to get for the average player in the current deflated season. I spend 95% of my time in PvP and didn’t hit Rival until recently. Getting higher rating means getting lucky with lobbies or playing out of my mind. Because of the circumstances, I chose to sit on my rating and work on stupid PvE achievements instead.
I just don’t want anything from it.