I liked Labyssra’s comment, and thought it might be good to make a separate thread for this discussion to ensure people feel free to share their thoughts on things related to the topic without derailing the other one. Will start with quoting the initial posts sparking the discussion:
Organising /duel tournaments and other PvP RP events was a simpler affair long ago, when the game itself was simpler. But if such concepts were to be brought back again in the modern WoW, what would be the best approach to the rules? How would you balance fairness and accessibility in a way that player skill still matters enough for people to care? Would you add specific categories or otherwise try balance who fights who?
I understand that too many limitations, as well as too much freedom, would both lead to some players sitting out. Too much freedom and only a very small number of players would stand a chance, too many restrictions and people would feel the gameplay hindered too much to bother. It’s impossible to perfectly balance things, so there’d always be someone complaining about some decision. Which I believe is why over time we’ve gravitated away from these type of events, paired with a smaller population and people having less time to play WoW to keep up with certain aspects of the game.
For me personally, it was always more about creating a roleplay spectacle than a pure PvP competition - that’s what Arenas are for. The gameplay was there to spice up the immersion, and kept the action in real time, offering a visual representation of the fighting.
Whatever thoughts might you have on the topic? I’m not of the mind to replace the current /roll emote tournaments with PvP mechanics (I’m not much of a PvPer myself), I’m more curious if there’d be any interest in these type of events alongside the other at all in the present day.
If you do it as a tournament, one way of organizing it would be to split competitors into different categories or divisions. Might only need two, although they’re kind of opposite extremes: A no-holds-barred division where you show up in your best PvP gear (intended for dedicated PvP players); and a casual division where you are required to fight in level 10 vendor whites, no trinkets etc., to take gear wholly out of the equation. That should also make the fights last longer to add some spectacle.
I’m an old man posting on a phone so apologies for the deleted/edited nonsense above.
PvP tournaments I’ve attended in the past, usually at Kosh’arg or the Mugambala, have been a good time. There’s definitely been chaffing issues though - gear discrepancy is a big issue to me. I’m not actually sure if PvP ilvl kicks in during /duel come to think of it, but I would probably enforce an ilvl cap with relatively easy requirements, something like rare-crafted gear only, stats can be what you want through missives, highest PvP gear you can use is entry level trinkets, encourage some work with crafter’s. Tank specs would probably need to be ruled out due to their inherent mitigation and sustain making them drag matches on absurdly long, maybe the same with healers as well. I don’t know, ask someone who’s PvPed since SLands how healers and tanks are to fight 1v1.
I’d probably push for best of 3 matches as well, using something like challonge or start.gg to easily organise and clearly display brackets. That might just be me channeling my FGC dork - could totally see best of 3 not being feasible with too many sign ups.
Personally I prefer it to /rolls as I’ve seen some really bogus things happen, like the teenage elf with a baby’s-first-bow winning archery tournaments two years in a row against some competitors that are military-trained markspeople because that’s how the dice landed. You could circumvent with modifiers but at that point I think you’re getting too deep into the weeds and moving away from K.I.S.S.
Something I would consider is that most player arent glad level skill, so I would focus more on noobs/bad/average players than good one, there may be a bracket for the good players, but may goal should be no exp or casuals, so that most RPers could enter the tournament. Watching 2 people who have no clue what they are doing should be more fun than watching 2 glads trading cds.
I would say reasonable cut off would be in SL as thats when we got PvP ilvls, current tier sets and eventually current talents, so chances are if you were an 1800 player in SL, you are still one now.
There would have to be a check pvp control of the participants by the organizers to promise the most fair a new PvPer friendly competition (or most fair for chosen rating/exp/skill level for the specific event).
And then other gameplay rules would have to be set for any event: crafted or honour gear only, maybe 4 set allowed or not, tanks and fury warriors not permited etc.
Honestly for me personally trying to make it as “fair” as possible would be the key, nobody wants to show up for a fun match and get steamrolled and oneshot by a gladiator. I think any sane RPer is ok with losing, be it in rolls or any other type of combat, but everybody wants a fighting chance, otherwise why even bother signing up.
Bonus point: When the goblin discord started a while ago, we were playing with the idea of a full on goblin battle bot league. Not just a tournament, but a proper regular season with set number of matches followed by play offs, teams with names and logos, games being opportunity for vendors, sponsors with cheesy ads, food vendors, a hook in walk up RP kind of “whos your team?” or “Did you catch the match last night?” type of deal. I guess pet battles are technically PvP too. The game has some systems that have potential to add to RP experience.
Man. Acrona. You don’t have to make me feel old. Just spotted myself, and my old guild, in the Argent Tournament video.
I am all for RPpvp events, especially tournaments. Was even a greater fan of the jousting with the Argent Tournament Jousting system, as everyone could have a chance to rank up against everyone - the duels were a little harder, but still fun to have. Could limit the duels to an equipment set of only honour gear, to make it a little more equal for future options.
Seeing myself on the Maul teaser thumbnail is like a Vietnam flashback. Losing to that hunter because I stunned her pet and trinketed a disorient was a failure Rotgarde didn’t let me live down for months.
Anyway, the benefit of duel tournaments has always been the spectacle and factors of a skillcap and gear: something players can work towards, and work put in is rewarded as opposed to the pure chance of roll fights—supposing, of course, Blizzard’s balance isn’t too skewed these days. Some players who RP a strong or skilled character might be ruled out because they haven’t got the gear or PVP know-how but that’s ultimately always been a necessary sacrifice. Maybe there’ll be a glad or r1 player who will take it all but I think that’s preferable to trying to warp the rules into a setting for unskilled players. PVP will be the closest measure you’re ever gonna get to skill-based competition in WoW and steering it away from that both defeats the purpose and probably won’t go very well in practice.
I remember in the WoD and Legion era of duels sometimes certain classes or specs would get banned as the winner was often predictable from the get-go e.g. nobody could beat a skilled feral druid, and no feral druid was gonna win from a frost dk sitting in blood spec. At the time it seemed like a reasonable compromise to spice things up and get some fresh results in but the sorry truth of it was that the ‘obvious spec to win’ was simply moved down a few rungs. No feral druids meant the death knight would win, no death knight meant the warrior would win, etc. Moreover, I don’t think modern day WoW has the same type of customizability in specs that MoP and to an extent WoD did, meaning the rock-paper-scissor nature of 1v1s will be even more rigid.
The long and short of it is: leave the rules in Blizzard’s hands beyond the timeless basics: no tank or healer specs & no engineering.
Depending on the time allocated and how many participants you get, a round-robin type tournament might be cool to freshen things up. After all, you have the benefit of quick fights and quick results, and if push comes to shove, slap on a 5 minute timer that can end matches in a draw—no points for either fighter.
I actually love seeing in-game systems used for these things. A tourney back on my home turf (Moon Guard NA) offers both roll dueling and PvP dueling in a pretty intense bracket. You could maybe get a lot of inspo from how they do it, Acrona! That tournament is pretty accredited in the sense even Blizzard has thrown in some gift card prizes to them, since the RPers who host it do it in part to raise money for an IRL charity. It has a wixsite, the Tournament of Ages, where you can see some of their stuff.
While it’s not exactly the same (it behaves more like actual arena matches), I think they have some really good base rules that help with understanding the current state of content in a nutshell and how to make it fit into a tournament setting because the people who host that portion of the tournament are RPers who are glads and things like that, and their biggest rules they enforce over these years have been:
Those who participate must farm out an aspirant set of honor gear, to keep the playing field more intact. (Pretty sure this includes no enchants, sockets, etc.)
Participants must be in DPS specs, no tank or healer ones, because sustainability just becomes such a big problem that these fights will go on foreverrrr…
And of course some general rules that you would think would never be necessary but always wind up being necessary because PvP sometimes brings out the same behaviors in people as road rage, like ‘hey please don’t t-bag people when you win’ and various other immersion rules.
This is very cool though, I’ve not been on AD long so seeing these videos is like :O… also we are one step closer to my dream (IC hearthstone tournaments where we all boot up hearthstone and play it in a minimized window for rights to be the smartest kids on the block)
