[REJECTED] "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

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ribbaribbahey
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[REJECTED] "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#1 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 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.
Last edited by ribbaribbahey on 26 May 2016 17:15, edited 2 times in total.

Ribbaz - 2300 2v2 Enhancement
Pokimans - 2100 2v2 Fire
Cazzuto - Arms PvE / 1950 2v2
Dextr - Blood Dps PvE / Frost "priority list" Dps PvE
Ribba - Beast Mastery PvP / Survival PvE

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ribbaribbahey
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#3 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 26 May 2016 15:02

Please note that the details are still to be discussed. Either if you want to take action or not, please leave a brief motivation, and your suggestions if you have any.

Ribbaz - 2300 2v2 Enhancement
Pokimans - 2100 2v2 Fire
Cazzuto - Arms PvE / 1950 2v2
Dextr - Blood Dps PvE / Frost "priority list" Dps PvE
Ribba - Beast Mastery PvP / Survival PvE

My Enhancement PvP guide

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Fastor
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#4 » Post by Fastor » 26 May 2016 15:28

ribbaribbahey wrote:Please note that the details are still to be discussed. Either if you want to take action or not, please leave a brief motivation, and your suggestions if you have any.
Brief motivation: PVP suck by default, l hate games where players are uneven in terms of ability and stats. Its not true measure of skills and most important skills wont matter at one point when you take few 5k+ hits in less than 2 seconds.

Suggestion: Ribb is suggesting of lowering high end of gears so it gets bit even between starters and those who never leave arena or bg. Thats nice but l would go even lower down to Fury gear. Everyone can get it.

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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#5 » Post by Longi » 26 May 2016 15:48

So .. he wrote " light " version of my post :-D
Pvp is about burst dmg. If you cant kill opponent in first 20 seconds its lame :-P times when you needed skill and you had to kite / cc are gone :-D


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keez
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#6 » Post by keez » 26 May 2016 16:24

Theres nothing more fun than beating a full gear team when you are in furious/low gear. Its not true that gear has such a big impact. I reached 2400 playing resto with a furious gear war. Only thing that really can affect the outcome of some matches is SM which I think everyone wants to remove from arena. So its a no-no from me, just a bad suggestion that will change nothing about arenas on truewow, this wont make more ppl play arena.

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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#7 » Post by nikkal » 26 May 2016 16:39

Really, the posts these days.... I just give up on people... Gear>skill yo. Me pro you sux. No matter the gear, you win 2 games in 2s, other team leave and rages and spams whisper. Anyhow, if this really happens, you can expect death of pvp. Any kind of pvp, really. At least, that's mine opinion...

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ribbaribbahey
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#8 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 26 May 2016 17:10

keez wrote: Its not true that gear has such a big impact. I [...] <personal achievements>
Same old argument, we get there is people able to do that, but it doesn't mean that the first sentence in the quote is true.

We are dealing with the AVERAGE player, and the problem of the decline of the population / death of pvp (that are each other's cause, not just one the cause of the other). If you and few others can climb the ladder versus overgeared oppenents, fine, but since the average player doesn't, the pvp scene is not going to improve.

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?

Ribbaz - 2300 2v2 Enhancement
Pokimans - 2100 2v2 Fire
Cazzuto - Arms PvE / 1950 2v2
Dextr - Blood Dps PvE / Frost "priority list" Dps PvE
Ribba - Beast Mastery PvP / Survival PvE

My Enhancement PvP guide

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nikkal
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#9 » Post by nikkal » 26 May 2016 17:31

Also, this game is MEANT to be played with Relentless gears.
Really? With relentless? What if everyone gets Wrathfull gear? That makes it "meant to be played with Wrathfull?
What about PVE gear? All the mages/warlocks/paladins/warriors, w/e in BG/areans with pve gear?
What about Shadowmourne?
What about RS trinkets?

Diseable all! Cmon man, do you honestly think any of those would take any impact on pvp?
If you think you lose arenas/Bg cause you have lower gear, you really should rethink your play style or class you playing.

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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#10 » Post by Psychotic » 26 May 2016 17:38

Im just here to rant about smourne in arena, everything else seems kinda fine to me

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ribbaribbahey
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#11 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 26 May 2016 17:39

@Nikkal
You obviously did not understand. Please read it again until you understand it and/or lose that nerdraging attitude. And please, try with observations that actually make sense.

Ribbaz - 2300 2v2 Enhancement
Pokimans - 2100 2v2 Fire
Cazzuto - Arms PvE / 1950 2v2
Dextr - Blood Dps PvE / Frost "priority list" Dps PvE
Ribba - Beast Mastery PvP / Survival PvE

My Enhancement PvP guide

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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#12 » Post by nikkal » 26 May 2016 17:54

Ow, i get your point. But i also get the bigger picture. That this wont end on this. That's the start of "Fun server". I've seen it, not once. You think this will help arenas/pvp? It's gonna kill it. There is really few people, you can literally count the on fingers of one hand, who actually pvp. And they don't even want pvp gear anymore. People are leaving TW for stuff like this, and going to that "other server" to sort of speak. Even that "lower requirement for pvp awards" is already lame. But that's my opinion. I'm done on this subject.

Thank you and kind regards.

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keez
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#13 » Post by keez » 26 May 2016 18:08

ribbaribbahey wrote:If you and few others can climb the ladder versus overgeared oppenents, fine, but since the average player doesn't, the pvp scene is not going to improve.
If players want to climb they need to play better thats all.
Nobody gave me and other ppl special terms and special seasons to get our gears, we just played a lot of arenas and practiced.

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ribbaribbahey
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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#14 » Post by ribbaribbahey » 26 May 2016 18:18

That is not how the game was supposed to work. And everything else is tuned around it: you can't just change a piece in the gears of a clock and expect that everything else would work as normal. Wow is based on numbers and averages. Not a meaningful number of people will put effort in what you say, and pvp will get worse and worse.

Plus, you have to play remarkably better than your opponents to pull out some results when undergeared vs overgeared. And that is not very likely to happen if (as in the position we are discussing about) the undergeared who has most likely just started is versus someone who had the time of (over)gearing up to sharpen his skills.
PvP is one half of the game, and currently locked to newcomers. I repeat, if I was considering to join this server at this state as a newcomer, I wouldn't do it. And I think so wouldn't you.

We blame the DDOS attack to have crippled the server, but if you think about it, why were we growing in that period, but we are on today's average from the past couple of years? The complete answer is surely more complicated, but a big part is played by the discouragement on joining a pvp scene where you need to play like it is 2200 rating to win opponents in order to pick your 1400 WF boots.

PS: you also did PvE first, and a lot of people do not want/have the time to do that.

Ribbaz - 2300 2v2 Enhancement
Pokimans - 2100 2v2 Fire
Cazzuto - Arms PvE / 1950 2v2
Dextr - Blood Dps PvE / Frost "priority list" Dps PvE
Ribba - Beast Mastery PvP / Survival PvE

My Enhancement PvP guide

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Re: "Partial" Arena season resets problems and possible solutions

#15 » Post by Wilcox » 26 May 2016 18:51

let's go ahead and assume that this lock is in place for 1 month

the other 5 months it will be just the same. seems to be rather an insignificiant change to me

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