[REJECTED] "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions
Posted: 26 May 2016 13:24
It is the time to bring to your attention the inefficiency of "partial arena seasons resets".
A little of history: arena seasons were introduced by request of the high MMR (matchmark rating) people so that they could receive the benefits of their rating (titles etc) and so that they could reset their MMR and play more once again. It was expected that geared and/or good people would then quickly raise their MMR again after a reset, so that the gear difference wouldn't matter much after the first weeks of the reset.
While this was firstly received as a good idea (from me too, actually), the "pvp people" is currently suffering the long-term disadvantages of such an incomplete implementation.
I am aware that GMs are terrified to take any step that could raise disagreement among any fraction of TW players, but the arena season system as it is now is not a self-sustainable system. We reached a point where players from rating 0 in middle season already have almost all the rewards that the pvp (and pve) system can give, and one of the implications is that rating is only a "popularity" thing, therefore lowering one's the drive to raise his/her rating (that should be proportional to one's gears and skills), and creating a stagnant ladder. You know by yourself that the "casual pvp" in truewow has died many years ago, and that is to impute mainly to the gear difference between the casuals and the dedicated pvp-ers.
I remember when i was playing retail, pvp was mostly constituted by casuals. Not only BGs, but arena as well.
Personal experience: I wanted to gear up altogether with my brother 2 new toons in pvp. Starting with furious/relentless gears from Honor and EoTs, we 9 on 10 times would face teams that we just couldn't compete with because of the gear difference. I then was forced to leave my gearing toon for one of my "mains". Got better, but at times there are only Shadowmourne teams online, and the situations is back to the same. Now, this bad experience of mine is not the reason why I want the season system to be improved: I can relate to any new player, or even a casual one, that tries to play the game in pvp. They most certaintly don't have a geared main char like I do, so their options are very limited, resulting in an abandon of Pvp. The PvP scene is empty of new players not because there are not any, but because joining it in this state is discouraged.
It happened more than once that in global chats or in the forum a person interested in this server would ask how pvp endgame is here. What would you answer? You ought to say it is stagnant. I don't know what those people decided to do, but I wouldn't waste my time levelling etc having that endgame scenario in mind.
The source of many problems of this server is that it is static: scenarios that were meant to be TEMPORARY, here are PERMANENT, and give birth to a series of different problems that are merely the accumulation of that temporary imbalance.
Let me give an example:
Horde is slightly better at BGs >>>>>> Horde gears up a little faster than Alliance >>>>> Horde has more geared players >>>>> Horde is moderately better at BGs >>>>>> (loop) >>>>>> Horde has considerably better W/L ratio at BGs >>>>>> ALLIANCE PLAYERS TRANSFER TO HORDE TO GEAR UP PVP >>>>> Horde has increased population and therefore a bigger pool of good players >>>>> (loop) >>>>>> FREE CHARACTER TRANSFERS ARE GIVEN OUT TO RESTABILIZE THE POPULATION AND STOP THE LOOP
This vicious circle is stoppable BEFORE the migration from alliance to horde by simply "resetting" the gear differences in this loop. Not claiming that the difference in population is solely dependent from this phenomenon, but it surely has its big impact.
Also, this game is MEANT to be played with Relentless gears. It means that spells and abilities are BALANCED when played with a certain amount of spell power, attack power, and weapon damage. Outside those limits, there is no certainty that the game is balanced. And for "balanced" I mean the intended rock-paper-scissors nature of WoW's classes, I don't mean that one class would be able to prevail on all the others thanks to skill. Does it ring a bell if I remind you of the abundance of platers in arena?
Now, to the REAL SUGGESTION.
I highly recommend to introduce a regressive lock for the wrathful and for the high-itemlevel pve gears at the start of each season, at least in arenas (but in BGs would be highly appreciated as well). This would not delete the gears (and negate people's efforts), and would encourage an healthy pvp scene. It could also encourage world PvP as there will not be such restrictions.
Ideally, in BGs and arenas one could be not allowed to equip any gear higher that a certain itemlevel if he/she has not reached in that season the personal rating that such item requires. This lock for pve items could follow the same pattern of the respective pvp items, or it could be made a little easier to use pve gears. Alternatively, PvE gear's lock could follow a simple "time-estimation" rule, for which for example one is not expected to have Shadowmourne before twelve (?) weeks from the begin of the season (to simulate the fact that season 8 started with patch 3.3.0 in retail).
Example: Week 5 after the season reset, I have reached 1700 rating in these 5 weeks: I will be allowed to use my 4/5 WF mainset and icc25 gear, but not WF weapons, or icc25hc and RS(n) gear.
Think carefully. The PvP scene is not going to get better by itself.
A little of history: arena seasons were introduced by request of the high MMR (matchmark rating) people so that they could receive the benefits of their rating (titles etc) and so that they could reset their MMR and play more once again. It was expected that geared and/or good people would then quickly raise their MMR again after a reset, so that the gear difference wouldn't matter much after the first weeks of the reset.
While this was firstly received as a good idea (from me too, actually), the "pvp people" is currently suffering the long-term disadvantages of such an incomplete implementation.
I am aware that GMs are terrified to take any step that could raise disagreement among any fraction of TW players, but the arena season system as it is now is not a self-sustainable system. We reached a point where players from rating 0 in middle season already have almost all the rewards that the pvp (and pve) system can give, and one of the implications is that rating is only a "popularity" thing, therefore lowering one's the drive to raise his/her rating (that should be proportional to one's gears and skills), and creating a stagnant ladder. You know by yourself that the "casual pvp" in truewow has died many years ago, and that is to impute mainly to the gear difference between the casuals and the dedicated pvp-ers.
I remember when i was playing retail, pvp was mostly constituted by casuals. Not only BGs, but arena as well.
Personal experience: I wanted to gear up altogether with my brother 2 new toons in pvp. Starting with furious/relentless gears from Honor and EoTs, we 9 on 10 times would face teams that we just couldn't compete with because of the gear difference. I then was forced to leave my gearing toon for one of my "mains". Got better, but at times there are only Shadowmourne teams online, and the situations is back to the same. Now, this bad experience of mine is not the reason why I want the season system to be improved: I can relate to any new player, or even a casual one, that tries to play the game in pvp. They most certaintly don't have a geared main char like I do, so their options are very limited, resulting in an abandon of Pvp. The PvP scene is empty of new players not because there are not any, but because joining it in this state is discouraged.
It happened more than once that in global chats or in the forum a person interested in this server would ask how pvp endgame is here. What would you answer? You ought to say it is stagnant. I don't know what those people decided to do, but I wouldn't waste my time levelling etc having that endgame scenario in mind.
The source of many problems of this server is that it is static: scenarios that were meant to be TEMPORARY, here are PERMANENT, and give birth to a series of different problems that are merely the accumulation of that temporary imbalance.
Let me give an example:
Horde is slightly better at BGs >>>>>> Horde gears up a little faster than Alliance >>>>> Horde has more geared players >>>>> Horde is moderately better at BGs >>>>>> (loop) >>>>>> Horde has considerably better W/L ratio at BGs >>>>>> ALLIANCE PLAYERS TRANSFER TO HORDE TO GEAR UP PVP >>>>> Horde has increased population and therefore a bigger pool of good players >>>>> (loop) >>>>>> FREE CHARACTER TRANSFERS ARE GIVEN OUT TO RESTABILIZE THE POPULATION AND STOP THE LOOP
This vicious circle is stoppable BEFORE the migration from alliance to horde by simply "resetting" the gear differences in this loop. Not claiming that the difference in population is solely dependent from this phenomenon, but it surely has its big impact.
Also, this game is MEANT to be played with Relentless gears. It means that spells and abilities are BALANCED when played with a certain amount of spell power, attack power, and weapon damage. Outside those limits, there is no certainty that the game is balanced. And for "balanced" I mean the intended rock-paper-scissors nature of WoW's classes, I don't mean that one class would be able to prevail on all the others thanks to skill. Does it ring a bell if I remind you of the abundance of platers in arena?
Now, to the REAL SUGGESTION.
I highly recommend to introduce a regressive lock for the wrathful and for the high-itemlevel pve gears at the start of each season, at least in arenas (but in BGs would be highly appreciated as well). This would not delete the gears (and negate people's efforts), and would encourage an healthy pvp scene. It could also encourage world PvP as there will not be such restrictions.
Ideally, in BGs and arenas one could be not allowed to equip any gear higher that a certain itemlevel if he/she has not reached in that season the personal rating that such item requires. This lock for pve items could follow the same pattern of the respective pvp items, or it could be made a little easier to use pve gears. Alternatively, PvE gear's lock could follow a simple "time-estimation" rule, for which for example one is not expected to have Shadowmourne before twelve (?) weeks from the begin of the season (to simulate the fact that season 8 started with patch 3.3.0 in retail).
Example: Week 5 after the season reset, I have reached 1700 rating in these 5 weeks: I will be allowed to use my 4/5 WF mainset and icc25 gear, but not WF weapons, or icc25hc and RS(n) gear.
Think carefully. The PvP scene is not going to get better by itself.