I would love to see the data because from my perspective looking at LFG, the toxic levels at 2k+ Shuffle / Blitz and the absolute lack of pvp community, it looks to me that solo shuffle and Blitz are actually massively damaging to PVP and will likely see further reduction…
The game is meant to be an MMO, and the solo blitz and shuffle just removes the MMO side, creates division and creates negative interactions as opposing to meaningful ones?
How many times have you been in LFG since the introduction of Blitz and Shuffle and jumped in a que with somebody, and gone straight on discord for coms? i reckon that has reduced a minimum of 99%
i mean all blitz and shuffle does is allow people to get loot they probably shouldnt have since you can get to high rating in both brackets with close to 0 coordination or understanding of your class since some classes are just -that- oppressing that its basically a free climb
Certain people already on their way to explain you why 3v3/2v2 are horrible formats and anything that requires coordination or human interaction should be removed.
Indeed it has done a great damage combined with general gameplay being shifted heavily towards M+ without any regard for PvP. Arena will never recover. This is literally the deadest season in a history of WoW PvP and it’s a first season of the expansion.
In SL s3/4 we’ve seen what it looks like to play an actual dead game with not enough activity to play the game. And somehow in someway they’ve managed to make it worse with every season after.
I am calling it now, MoP classic s12 will be the official end of WoW PvP. Both retail and classic. The reason is simple. People will play since it is very refreshing compared to retail gameplay but they will eventually quit after few months because it is very boring to play the same patch for 2 years. Those people won’t return to retail. It’s the typical split community and lose players in a process.
You will probably be mad at me, but without solo shuffle and BG blitz I would probably not be playing PvP at all. So for me, I guess those are nice additions, since I only care about getting full PvP gear per season, getting elite transmog and then I mostly stop playing PvP altogether.
But without those game modes, I would just don’t collect as I would consider the rest of the options not feasible enough to care.
This is how i see it
Game is frustrating
frustrated people often flame
people flaming often get banned
soloq tends to be more frustrating too
i think banning for chat behaviour should be rly RLY rare, which is not the case nowdays, im not saying to NEVER ban for chat behaviour, but ive seen bans flying off both here and in league of legend for even typo, and then u r stuck into making tickets and being answered to bot talking about violating the policies of the agrement abla bla bla bla bla always the same thing x)
not flaming is just as unealthy as flaming.
but this is a lost cause, for another 10-20 years prob, in 20 years when we will act like robot and never interact with online community people will say “ah, it was better when mark was telling me to hang myself everytime i failed to hit a free sheep on the enemy healer”
Yes, it should be. Lfg fiesta to play pvp is
an archaism from 00s, every single pvp game abandoned something like this DECADES ago. Look here, and there are many of players with such opinions:
And pvp is dead not because of solo queues, there are way more fundamental problems such as bad UI, unreal amount of bugs, too complicated game for new players, long queues because of must have healer requirement in all modes, bad balance and the fact that gameplay almost not changed since df.
And even more fundamental things, like the tww patch is horrible and dull if we look on other sides of the game.
The game is dying because of split playerbase among patches in every aspect, not just pvp. It just more noticeable in pvp because playerbase is small and becoming even smaller. But it has nothing to do with solo queues, which are actually more popular than arenas.
No, Im early 30s based gym gigachad who not going to defend rules of big companies that are going against human nature and driven by you know whom you know for what. And you are
Where is competition, there is emotions. It is normal and happens even in real life sports. So banning in the game with ignore button for chat abuse (if it is not real life threats or something like that) is the worst thing that can be done to a community.
To be real. ppl that suck can climb easier in old school 3vs3 because then they can get carried by good players. In Solo it’s mainly on you and knowing when to use cooldowns properly if you wanna climb past 1800 and of course what ever is META thanks to blizzard horrible ability to balance games.
Matter of fact I am sure there are some glads pre solo that can’t even hit 2.4k
Solo Queue content is not damagin pvp, on the contrary it, provides a very good option to jump into rated content without depending on 1-2 other mates availability.
I believe there are several reasons why people shifted away from 3s (&2s) to play solo:
Availability, you can queue up any time
You can queue any spec you want, even if your main is not meta right now
Faster climb, you can even get +300-400 CR depending on your CR/MMR ratio and a 6-0 lobby, against the 15-20 CR gains
LFG tool is totally outdated, inefficient
Unpleasant experience to get to form a 3s team from scratch
Old arena mates quit wow
Wow community got older, less time to play
PVP rewards; besides mount you can get all the rewards (except glad titles) from playing solo.
Glad mount this expansion is a huge downgrade from previous expansions (same goes for S2, so this trend likely to continue), so many don’t even bother 3s
Solo Blitz is EXTREMELY inflated, easy to get high mmr and if people took the time, they can get to 2.4k easily.
Due to current inflation mechanism, it is easier to get glad at the end of the season, so no need to play it early
The small PVP community is split between different version of wow novadays: classic, classic HC, cataclism, soon panda and retail
And there are probably many more…
Solo Shuffle & Blitz are also flawed in many-many ways, but given how easily accessible they are and how unrewarding 2s and 3s are, no wonder folks choose the former.
I also romanticise the old times in TBC when you had to form arena teams and climb together with online and irl friends, but those times have passed(sadly).
Current WoW is all about efficiency and min-maxing every content which promotes elitism, creating a toxic environment in the process. Nowadays, only a few care about how cool a dude is, what matters is how: maxed his gear, effective his rotation is & makes as little mistakes as possible…
Blitz is good because for rbg player without a team it was almost impossible to get a group and even when you create one you need to wait a long time while forming before playing a single game.
But solo shuffle is the reason rated pvp die, same reward except glad mount but glad mount only a small pour cent of player base can get it so why bother?
We already had 2s 3s no need another arena bracket, but they could have just added solo q system into 3s and that’s all.
Before we can look at solo content as potentially damaging i advice looking firstly at the state of PvP, starting from beginner level to casual and into above average/elitist level:
Starting with
Normal Battlegrounds-
As you can clearly see the first decline we can easily notice is in Normal Random Battlegrounds where new and learning to casual player base is supposed to start to get used to PvP so they can later fuel, or fill like a fresh blood- a limb, that is rated PvP.
Ok, but sadly the plague of raid syncing not only disinsentivice newcommers and learning players but now even casuals are straying away from their “safe-heaven”, therefore no new potentials are entering the pool in rated pvp later on.
This has been a practice for long enough, and for the last 2 years we see a great increase of this practice. (more information in this thread : eu. forums. blizzard. com/en/wow/t/theres-a-new-wave-of-premades)
Continued implimentation of uncomprehensive elements into the game:
Blizzard designs PvP in such manner that the game has become uncomprehensive to veteran players let alone to new coming players.
This alone increases the difficulty, appeal, frustration alone.
(im talking about the CD tracking, buffs,debuffs and the saturation of absurd “rule of cool” mechanics in PvP)
Too many addons, weakauras and macros, which alone require too much depth into the matter to the point where the gap between the new players and veteran players grows larger.
I would even go to criticize fast leveling as it is the main reason why being new to a class is so overwhelming. Back in the day you would learn a great deal of your class by the point you leveled at maxx level, now the game just drops you in the middle of “it” all and you just dont know what else to do other than to quit.
As I said earlier- theres no longer a safe place to learn PvP.
Elitism
Elitism is among the main reason I as a veteran player of above casual rating am unwilling to engage in grouped Rated PvP. The amount of LinkedIn you must be willnig to partake to gain rating is almost as much of a challenge as the uncomprehensive nature of todays PvP.
My final conclussions:
I believe elitism, premades and design phisolophy killed PvP way back there and then, i find it only a coincidence that the events line up with Blitz and Solo Shuffle.
And if anything is a proof that its not a secret how stuborn WoW players are, and its a proof that if they’re given a choice - even the seasoned and as I said stuborn WoW players wont put themselves on the threadmil.
You always say this, but I find SoloShuffle to not threat the same way different classes as I find some classes and specs being way harder in shuffle, rather than a coordinated premade 3v3 group for that same reason.
Also you say this as someone who plays mainly Assassin rogue, and had his Elite more than 6 years ago.
I dont think you’re on the money at all.
As I said- players choice speaks lauder than anything else.
People wouldnt play 3v3 if they’re not forced into it,
and forcing the player into a undesired content is bad design by the book.