Dragonflight PvP gearing hot take

[Waldoh-kazzak]

Blizzard is reintroducing WOD-like gearing for pvp in Dragonflight, which means; You will only have to obtain the conquest gear and then you are done, as it will be scaled to the highest possible ilvl in pvp. There is no more upgrading and there is no more high gear rewards to go for, which means: A casual afk’ing BG-andie, will be having the exact same gear as a R1 player eventually.
This is being done for the sake of pvp’ing feeling fair, but i feel like it in the process removes any kind of progression that pvp offers. I get that in a Counter Strike match or in a League of Legends game, the game should be fair from the second it starts, but i can’t help but wonder why blizzard is not looking at WoW as an RPG first. This essentially means that there is no incentive for people to push rating, unless they push for Glad or R1, which is the top 5% of players (random stat).

Back in the day, what felt the best was to have earned something big, or a huge upgrade you could take to random battlegrounds and have fun with. This is now being removed for the sake of everyone being on a level playingfield. That was never WoW, and by doing this, i fear that PvP in this game will feel bland and the participation will be less.
Even when you saw people with good gear, you would work that much harder to try and get the same gear, being in the progression, and not just fall back to another pseudo pvp template ( which i feel this inevitibly will become).

Note that i know i stand very isolated on this issue, as alot of pvp’ers and content creators celebrate this change. I am just wondering if i am completely alone in feeling this way, taking out progression and the feeling of getting stronger, or if anyone else agrees? (i know your ilvl becomes better in pve through upgrading, but that seems like a weird thing to reward pvp players with regardless)

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Waldoh-kazzak

There is no more upgrading

? Isn’t there gonna be upgrading for the PvE ilvl on the items?

@Waldoh-kazzak

but i can’t help but wonder why blizzard is not looking at WoW as an RPG first.

It still is. In PvE. Where it belongs. Mkay.

@Waldoh-kazzak

This essentially means that there is no incentive for people to push rating

Right… That’s why millions upon millions play chess for example. It’s all for the gear upgrades, obviously. It’s not like rating itself can be seen as a progression, no way. It’s not like you getting better at the game can be an incentive either, hell no. It’s not like the cosmetics are rewards either, absolutely not. No way, man. Nuh-uh.

@Waldoh-kazzak

i fear that PvP in this game will feel bland and the participation will be less.

Yeah, it’s not like players quit playing PvP because of the gear differences.

[Waldoh-kazzak]

I already acknowledged that there will be upgrading, but it would be the equivilent of raiders getting better gear for pvp by doing mythic content (without it being better in pve). I don’t see what would motivate a pvp’er to push to get stronger in pve.
I also already addressed the point of drawing parallels to other games. Of course chess has to be fair, but it’s not an rpg. Ofc CS has to be fair, because the game is not centered around gear progression. One of the basics of an mmo is to make your character stronger - And that means, that yes you are going to encounter people with better gear than you. Tough.
Thats why it makes no sense to draw parallels to wow and chess.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Waldoh-kazzak

Thats why it makes no sense to draw parallels to wow and chess.

You want a deep dive into the psychology behind why players play games and sports and why there are actual parallels that can be drawn between them?

Alright. Hang on.

[Waldoh-kazzak]

With that logic, why not remove gear entirely and give every raider, every m+ pusher, every pvp’er and hell every leveler a base set of stats and call it a day?
You can say the same across any game.
Stats say people love collecting pets in wow, why don’t we introduce a catching system in Counter strike?
It’s not the same game and people don’t play it for that reason, which again is why it’s silly to compare the two.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Bewarê-frostmane

It’s not a secret that the vast majority of players in the world are casual gamers. That’s also true for WoW’s player base. However, they’re also the most fickle. As in that they can give up the game at the drop of a hat, and just swap to something else.
The core gamers in the world are a very, very, tiny minority. Yet they’re also the ones who are the most loyal to the games they play, and they spend a lot more time in the game(s) they’re loyal to compared to the casual players.

It’s been a topic for discussion in the video game dev industry for decades.

But so the thing is, the harder it is, the more for core gamers it tends to count as. Since the harder it is, the more effort is required to “clear it” (just count it as synonymous with getting better for WoW, but this example is about games in general). Conversely, it also means that the easier it is, and the more happy-go-lucky the reward design is, the more casual-oriented is what it counts as.

So mythic raiding and rated PvP is typically counted as for the core gamers, due to its difficulty and effort required to “clear it”. While the world content, LFR and unrated PvP is typically what counts as for the casual-oriented, due to its all-inclusive reward designs (meaning you don’t need to play well to get rewards, and all rewards from it are non-exclusive) and generally lower level of skill displayed & required in the gameplay (except for the premades of course, but that’s a story for another day).

So the problem with arena isn’t its difficulty. It’s meant to be increasingly harder the higher up you go, and even though people are dropping rating for ez conq farm, that’s still true and it’s still tougher to climb higher the higher up you go, since the tougher opponents on low ratings are either not geared, playing an alt which they’re not as good at, or they’re simply the exception to the rule due to how uncommon it actually is.

The problem lies more with the reward design for WoW’s rated PvP. It’s quite literally a game mode that’s supposed to be an esport, but they’re not developing it as an esport. So it’s stuck in a place where casuals are angry, and the core gamers are unsatisfied. What Blizzard needs to do, is start pushing proper esports formats and support for 3rd-party organizers who can host tournaments more often than Blizzard does it.

WoW’s rated PvP is designed to be too hard for casuals. But that doesn’t mean Blizzard should make it easier for the casuals. It just means Blizzard needs to turn it into an esport and build an audience base, by letting 3rd-party organizers take a share of that pie. Blizzard is just being unbelievably greedy with the game and refuses to turn it into a proper esport because they won’t develop nor license out proper tournaments to be held by other organizers.

In other words, by building a proper audience for it, it gives the casual players something to aim at, and increases the chances of turning them into core gamers since they start dreaming about becoming as good as what they see.
It’s the same formula as for any sport in the world, like football for example. People of all ages watch the football matches and it makes many people, both adults and kids, dream about becoming as good, and so it turns more people into football players. Because the path they followed made them dream about it first. WoW doesn’t have anything close to that, because Blizzard holds it all in-house and does barely anything with it.

There you go. That’s how esports works and why it’s a billion-dollar industry in itself.

To say it’s all about the gear upgrades is as stupid as saying climate change isn’t a thing because winters exist.

[Alarielle-kingsfall]

PvP ilevel is one of the biggest obstacles for players joining later in the season, if you don’t sweat it out during the first month you fall massively behind and ilevel gaps become an artificial barrier to progress and push rating, which means players drop out and engagement drops off.

Players find it demotivating to come against opponents with 10k + more hp every game when they’re close to a rating break point.

This was also the issue “back in the day”, when approaching 2.2k, 2,2,k players had the weapons, close to that you were at a competitive disadvantage.

[Waldoh-kazzak]

You again are either not reading what i’m posting or you are strawmanning me hard yet again. I never claimed that pvp is all about gear upgrades. I said that in an (mmo)rpg, gear aquisition and upgrading it is core. That is not translating over to pvp anymore, as it’s now it’s own isolated game.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Waldoh-kazzak

I never claimed that pvp is all about gear upgrades.

You’re saying that it’s dependent on it, and that engagement will fall off without it. Which is wrong. In its core. As explained. Try reading that block of text, since you’re the one who apparently needed to be told all that much.

[Bic-eredar]

just here to tell u ur not alone. i feel the same. in sl ilvl differences were for sure way too high but gettin the best gear is a great motivation for me to push rating. otherwise, if the 2.1 wep illusion sucks like current season, i could also just gimp around at lower rating who cares. but since i want the best gear i have to push.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Bic-eredar

otherwise, if the 2.1 wep illusion sucks like this season, i could also just gimp around at lower rating who cares. but since i want the best gear i have to push.

Which is indicative of a deeper systemic problem, but it’s not solved by creating other problems with gear upgrades for PvP ilvls gated by rating.

It’s solved the way explained above.

Simply put, there needs to be more “prestige” in rating, even lower rating than r1. And the best way to do it, is explained above.

[Bic-eredar]

speak for urself please. i love the game but as i said gettin the best gear is a great motivation for ME to PUSH rating.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Bic-eredar

i love the game but as i said gettin the best gear is a great motivation for me to PUSH rating.

And the reason why it should feel great to push rating, is to bring more prestige into it. Which r1 is a great example of. It says a lot to be a r1-rated player. It says a lot about your ability. It creates a following in and of itself (as demonstrated by people following the streams).
The problem is that the game isn’t creating that for any other rating.
Meanwhile, like in every other sport and esport, they create many reasons to watch and cheer for people even lower rated than the small pool of “r1 players”. WoW doesn’t do that. There’s no proper “prestige” in it. But that isn’t solved with something that just creates other problems, like gating PvP ilvl upgrades via rating.

It’s solved the way explained above, in the wall of text.

[Bic-eredar]

im gonna read it now even tho i know i will want to punch u in the face afterwards because it was a waste of time.

[Dexxd-stormscale]

back in the day team existed, there was not coaching, people had 1 alt, 2 if big gamer and usually alts not bis gear, pve was not accesible at all (atleast the highest difficulty), if u was lets say 2300 rating, u had full gear vs full gear people, if u was 1700 rated, most people was 1700 actual rated and missing items for sure, cus the 2300 rated people was in their actual team without possibility of leave

now is much different, ppl want 10 alts, there is coaching, there is boosting, there is pay for everything, i dont feel fair if they release some insane pve items and all the big boys that dont care to spend 200 eur in 1 item have it, i dont, i just want to gear as fast as possible and loss arenas because skill, not bcs the enemy team have warglaives or shadowmourne

if gear thru pvp is fast then it encourages people to make more alts, play more, more activity, right now it makes no sense u have to farm 100k+ honor just to have the same gear every1 have, is not even anything special

[Bic-eredar]

well im not the same opinion as u at all. i think poeple miss building theyre charakter and thus so many strom to wotlk rn. wow doesnt work as a esport imo.
im fine with how retail is today because i dont have endless time anymore. still i wouldnt mind a 10ilvl difference between unranked and ranked just for the progression. obviously in esports games like legue u dont need this because after 40 mins everything resets and u play a different champion either way next game to counterpick ur enemys.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Bic-eredar

still i wouldnt mind a 10ilvl difference between unranked and ranked just for the progression.

? So you don’t mind Dragonflight’s design? Because you’re just describing honor and conquest gear without ilvl upgrades.

[Bic-eredar]

nah i mean between unranked conq and duelist conq.

but its not that big of a deal for me. i will play df nonetheless and push duelist for the badge on my check-pvp

i just wanted to say that i feel the same as OP. it would be a lie if i said max gear wouldnt be a motivation to push personally.

[Aryash-silvermoon]

@Bewarê-frostmane

Alright. Hang on

…God damn it

[Bewarê-frostmane]

@Bic-eredar

nah i mean between unranked conq and duelist conq.

but its not that big of a deal for me. i will play df nonetheless and push duelist for the badge on my check-pvp

So in other words, it’s not relevant for you whether there are PvP ilvl upgrades gated by rating, you’ll still do it.