Well, well, well. Look what we have here.
Ladies and gentlemen, it has been 1 year since my original Open Letter post from January '24 (~354 days). Incredible, isn’t it? I can’t believe it myself. When I was writing the original letter, I had 6 elites, I have 9 now.
To those uninitiated, the letter tackled many of the issues PvP had back then, and tried to offer some solutions. The post ended up with over 4.300 views and 50 likes, which for an EU forum PvP post is effectively unheard of in recent years, and for that I have to thank you, since apparently, it hit the nail on the head with the sum-up and many of you agreed.
Now…
…it is time to rewind, remind ourselves of what the original problems were, and see how many were tackled and how.
What I intend to do is the following:
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Summarize the key points of the original letter
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Summarize proposed solutions
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Summarize the current state of each key point
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Shout-out at the end points which remained unmentioned, or have become problematic after the post was released
The original letter goes very in-depth on the key points (it was 7181 words - over 14 standard pages worth of text), so I suggest you read that first if you wish to elaborate, because ultimately a summary is a summary, and is bound to omit or fail to mention something which the original did. But if I don’t keep it shorter, Venruki is gonna skip half of it like last year if he reads it - understandably so - and I do not want that to happen, for obvious reasons (no hate my man, thanks for checking it out nonetheless ^^).
The original will be linked at the very end of this post.
So, what did the original letter claim, and what’s the state nowadays?
1.1) Unfriendly UI
Baseline UI fails to deliver information clearly.
- Proposed solution: UI revamp, add-on pruning.
- Current state: Nothing changed, however it does seem there might be some add-on pruning in PvE.
Players require 3rd party add-ons for competitive edge.
- Proposed solution: UI revamp, add-on pruning.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Non-standardized 3rd party-bloated UI is illegible even to seasoned players.
- Proposed solution: UI revamp, add-on pruning.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The variance in individual UIs make it unappealing and incoherent for people watching.
- Proposed solution: UI revamp, add-on pruning.
- Current state: Nothing changed, the game is still borderline unwatchable and generally unfun to look at from the perspective of a WoW non-player.
1.2) Hard Accessibility
Nothing in the game teaches you how to play the gamemode, or even the game at endgame level in general (rotations, spell classes, outplays etc.).
- Proposed solution: Open spellbook for all classes and specializations, training grounds for given content, more spoon-fed explanations, e.g. from class trainers.
- Current state: We got a class-specific spellbook, it’s a start.
Baseline UI fails to mention key aspects of spells, making it incomprehensible, or makes it borderline impossible to comprehend on the go (e.g. spell school, dispellability, small hover-over icons etc.).
- Proposed solution: Proper, more detailed descriptions, UI revamp, training grounds.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
1.3) Learning the Ropes
The lack of comprehensiveness makes it incredibly hard for new players to understand the game or have access to its key aspects.
- Proposed solution: Proper, more detailed descriptions, UI revamp, training grounds, utilization of old class trainers.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
New players need 3rd party assets to learn even the key aspects properly (WowHead, addons, streamers, YouTube guides etc.).
- Proposed solution: Proper, more detailed descriptions, UI revamp, training grounds, utilization of old class trainers.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Extensive slang within the game aggravates the learning difficulty (DR, kick, DoTs, HoTs, burst, CC, individual spell nicknames etc.).
- Proposed solution: Training grounds, open spellbook for all classes.
- Current state: Nothing changed, however very hard to address, and we got class-specific spellbook.
The game makes it very frustrating for a new player to look up abilities of other classes, or even specializations (no open spellbook).
- Proposed solution: Open spellbook.
- Current state: We got a class-specific spellbook.
1.4) No Incentivization to Play
The scarcity of rewards and the difficulty of obtaining them makes PvP unappealing.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!), more rewards e.g. old PvP Elite set/Gladiator mount recolors or new recolors of those accessible via Vicious saddle/Gladiator mount-type item/quest which reflects the difficulty accordingly.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The highest reward for PvP (Gladiator mount) is locked in the highest skill bracket, which however has been overshadowed by other brackets, which do not proactively prepare you for participation in that bracket.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!), reward redistribution OR recolor + new titles introduction.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Unlike PvE, PvP outdated rewards are no longer obtainable, thus lying in vain as dead assets, even if your current level would allow you to reach them (e.g. Mythic sets + CE mounts vs. Elite sets + old Gladiator mounts).
- Proposed solution: Old PvP Elite set/Gladiator mount recolors or new recolors of those accessible via Vicious saddle/Gladiator mount-type item/quest which reflects the difficulty accordingly.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
All brackets offer effectively the same rewards except for Gladiator mount, however at different rates, artificially dividing the playerbase.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The difficulty discrepancy in obtaining said achievements poses a problem not only between brackets, but also across seasons, failing to show player’s personal skill growth in any given bracket.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
2.1) MMR
The inter-seasonal bracket achievement interconnectedness fails to properly showcase intended proficiency (no percentile-based achievements except for R1).
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The season-to-season MMR fluctuation underlines both lack of percentile-based achievements which would set a standard, but also the non-existent sense of progression and improvement as the player improves at the game.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
MMR is being proactively bottlenecked and bloated with an intention to ascertain player retention, ineffectively.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!). Also, just don’t, it just kills the playerbase.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The impossibility to progress where intended artificially squishes overly-proficient players into queues they do not belong to, further impeding the sense of progression and deterring players, as they are unable to consistently reach their goals which they should have, based on their previous experience.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed. If anything, the queues in many brackets have gotten even more unfair.
People create more alts to practice or make “backup characters” for playing, further aggravating the problem of meeting unevenly skilled people more frequently.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed. If anything, the queues in many brackets have gotten even more unfair.
2.2) Achievements = Unreachable
The lack of percentile-based achievements creates skill disparity in obtaining them, depending on the bracket.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Concrete number achievements fail to take playerbase size and activity into consideration, making them borderline unobtainable in some brackets, while making them trivial in others (e.g. 2v2 elite vs. BGB s1 elite).
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Some classes and/or specs have a marginally easier time achieving certain threshold in a given bracket (e.g. Discipline Priest vs. Restoration Shaman)
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Even overskilled players are unable to reach certain goals in some cases due to aforementioned aspects such as lack of players, low MMR, long queue times etc.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!).
- Current state: Nothing changed.
2.3) Elitism and Toxicity – Justified?
The fact that even skilled players have trouble reaching their goals easily makes them more prone to be unwilling to teach new players or to even play with them.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!), more rewards e.g. old rewards recyclation.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Solo modes introduction killed the LFG tool, however the main PvP reward (Gladiator mount) remains gated behind a bracket that requires pairing with other players, as an MMO game should.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!), reward redistribution OR recolor + new titles introduction.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The inability to consistently obtain one’s previously achieved goal has a negative impact on mentality, thus breeding toxicity, and also making a very bad name for the gamemode as a result of that, deterring more people from engaging with it.
- Proposed solution: I wish I did not have to copypaste the previous solutions to every single paragraph - by now most has already been said, however my distrust for the company’s performance tells me I know better and that I should keep doing it. Also, more actual humans proactively checking chats of accounts flagged with reports; death threats and other scum is still a regular thing in your game. Do your job. Aaaanyway…
- Current state: Nothing changed, except for Crusader getting banned.
2.4) You are Losing Money
Boosters are doing a great deal of what should be your job, such as UI organization, proper mechanic explanation, consistent playground etc.
- Proposed solution: UI redesign, open spellbook, more spoon-feeding, percentile-based achievements, training grounds, you know the drill by now.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Said boosters are being paid money for what you should be paid for in the first place - one thing is taking money for teaching advanced strategies, which is absolutely justifiable, however explaining core principles should be your job, Blizzard.
- Proposed solution: UI redesign, open spellbook, more spoon-feeding, percentile-based achievements, training grounds, you know the drill by now. Do. Your. Job.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The presence of boosters also aggravates the MMR imbalance.
- Proposed solution: UI redesign, open spellbook, more spoon-feeding, percentile-based achievements, training grounds, you know the drill by now.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The artificial disconnect between PvE and PvP not only ruins the playerbase size for both, but also breeds hatred between one another, deterring each from the other.
- Proposed solution: Re-introduction of cross-content gear, alongside with very slight optimizations in the opposing type of content to re-merge the playerbase back together, however not in such a way which would make it imperative to engage in both.
- Current state: Nothing changed. I mean, we can craft gear now, but the off-stats cannot be changed without recrafting and spending gold, which PvPers do not make much of.
You can greatly diminish this loss, but you are either deliberately ignorant, or incredibly incompetent if you fail to see this.
- Proposed solution: Just do your job, listen to the playerbase, read the forums, allow EU to participate in your researches.
- Current state: Nothing changed, except for Shadowy Duel removal.
3.1) Balance
PvP is absolutely riddled with all sorts of bugs, exploits, specialization performance discrepancies etc. and it takes you months or more to address them, and when you do, it is typically completely disproportionate (BM Hunter Phantom Pain, Discipline Priest performance, Frost Mage kitability toolkit, Cyrce’s Signet, Mind Control DC, Spirit Link instakill, hidden PvP dummy modifiers, MM damage shadow nerf, Evoker endless kitability etc.)
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Introducing very aggressive class/spec redesigns mid-season, ruining the balance, team compositions, strategies etc. midway through the process.
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics. Also, just don’t.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
Balancing around top performance or on-paper performance creates hardcore discrepancies in reality, making many specs unplayable in the lower skill brackets, ruining the fun of option.
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed. There will always be a meta, and the top players will always play said meta, no matter what it is. You do not have to kill the fun for the lower players attempting to diffuse that, because you will not succeed anyway.
3.2) Button Bloat
There is a lot of buttons and mechanics and you cannot access knowledge about without going to 3rd party sites and/or learning from players they exist to begin with - and they oftentimes are not even trackable in the actual game (DR, Frost Mage stun, Hunter MC dispel, duality of BM ferocity pet Bloodlust, line of sight/range etc.)
- Proposed solution: Proper, more detailed descriptions, UI revamp, training grounds, utilization of old class trainers.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The game is absolutely cluttered with dozens of micro-CC, mobility crutches, cc duration reduction etc., which turned the gamemodes into an M+ tank-and-spank parody rather than strategy-based gameplay.
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The overabundance of buttons gave birth to problems such as Precognition, which is nothing but a band-aid for a pre-existing problem which was not properly addressed, creating yet another one (e.g. we can still proc Precognition if a player is double-kicked even if one is successful, which happens in RSS frequently).
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
3.3) No Communication
Even though seasons last for months, at this point we are getting around 3-5 properly-sized balancing patches per season (and they typically fail to address the actual problems anyway).
- Proposed solution: Proper, more frequent balancing based on actual player feedback, not just statistics.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
4.1) RSS
RSS killed the old brackets, shifted the center of focus, proliferated the MMR discrepancies, but the endgame reward remained in one of the old brackets.
- Proposed solution: Percentile-based achievements starting on week 3 as player hits threshold (BASED ON SL S2 glad/DF S1 RSS/TWW S1 BGB bloated numbers!), more rewards e.g. old PvP Elite set/Gladiator mount recolors or new recolors of those accessible via Vicious saddle/Gladiator mount-type item/quest which reflects the difficulty accordingly.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The current RSS 6-round design creates clear favourites in any one queue it puts together.
- Proposed solution: Just put a Gladiator mount into the bracket and turn it into a singular 3v3 round, as it should have been. It will solve most of the problems.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The healer MMR is in a disastrous state and not only influences the healers, but also the DPS players that get matched up with unevenly competent healers.
- Proposed solution: Just put a Gladiator mount into the bracket and turn it into a singular 3v3 round, as it should have been. It will solve most of the problems, even this one.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
The 3-3 (and 6-0) games are a testament to aforementioned problems.
- Proposed solution: Considering how unfair the 6 round format is by principle, a 3-3 winrate should result in no CR gain, however the player should gain a little bit of MMR for not losing the round.
- Current state: Nothing changed.
If somebody leaves a match prematurely, those uninvolved are influenced by losing CR based on their unfinished standing within the lobby.
- Proposed solution: There is no way you do not have some sort of a system which would allow you to notice an account which /afk’d out instead of getting accidentally disconnected. Those need to drop MMR as well as CR.
- Current state: Those uninvolved are not getting reprimanded nearly as much for something they might have had nothing to do with.
5.1) New problems that arose or were left unmentioned
BGB
- It’s a new bracket, we all knew it’s going to be bloated, and we all knew it’s going to smother the other brackets (I predicted this in the original post too). Just please don’t do the same mistake you did with RSS when you bottlenecked it the next season and murdered all the brackets at once, and just bloat all of them to reasonable numbers, don’t introduce another deflated season, and revamp your achievements.
Botting still seems to be a problem.
- However not nearly as much as it used to be, at least from what I could see. I don’t recall coming across a blatant bot since Dragonflight, so clearly you did something right.
When you /afk out of a queue in RSS, you still retain your MMR, making the punishment barely existent.
- Aforementioned under RSS, this needs proper tackling through some sort of checking whether it was an accidental disconnect, or deliberate game close or /afk command.
Something needs to be done about queue dodging, be it deliberate or accidental.
- I honestly have no idea how to solve this entirely, but one of the solutions is obviously connected to the very next point.
Queue waiting times at non-above-Elite rating are unacceptable.
- And that would be this. It is absolutely unacceptable, especially for an adult with a job, responsibilities and a life, to wait for tens of minutes up to hours for a singular queue to pop. This would be greatly diminished by, again, percentile-based achievements based on bloated season statistics.
Premade queue matchers are running rampant in non-rated battlegrounds.
- To not forget casuals in this post, this needs to be tackled somehow. There is a very large thread about this in Battlegrounds section, so I will not delve into it and will just tell you to go read that.
Honor level farming needs HUGE pruning.
- Honestly, this is just stupid, and I do not understand how it took me or you this long to realize. On one side, there are people that have Honor levels in the thousands, without a single reward. Okay, be it that way if you do not wish to introduce any more. However what I absolutely cannot fathom is why a game at 2.4 rating which I wait for to proc for 10+ minutes awards me the same measly 160 honor, just like an instant-pop 800 MMR placement game would. Rating absolutely NEEDS to reflect into honor gains exponentially, because it is a clear display of higher proficiency at a certain aspect in PvP. Higher-rated players have an abundance of honor currency anyway, it’s just artifically slowing down the process, and it is actually sending systematic Honor farmers into Random Battlegrounds, proliferating aforementioned queue-syncing where it should absolutely not be allowed, ruining the fun for casual players. (Also, don’t forget that the by far fastest way to actually farm honor - a PvP currency - is spam-queuing guaranteed wins during Comp Stomp Brawl - a PvE event, followed by PvE trial Warrior Skyhold RNG chest drop!) Come on!
Flag carriers and stealthers hard-carrying BGB outcomes.
- Pretty self-explanatory, this needs to be tackled. Part of it will be, again, solved by proper MMR redesign, and that would allow more reasonable group composition distribution without afflicting the waiting time. Do it properly, please. Otherwise you need to tackle the individual abilities, there is no reason for a Mistweaver Monk on Alliance side on Twin Peaks to turbo over half the map and teleport over the other half within 10 seconds while the Restoration Shaman on the opposing team is getting groupied by the entirety of the enemy team with 2 DKs and a Dragon. Same case with 3 stealthers vs. no stealther on any base-sitting map.
The size and amount of pets and other non-playable, clickable assets.
- I would really love to target the Grounding Totem to kill it, but I literally cannot because there are 4 other totems around. And a full stable from a BM hunter that abuses the gigantic pet buff. And don’t force me to mention Demo Felstalkers, Tyrant and Observer. Do something about the nameplates, please, this also falls under UI redesign.
Mass-reporting and fake reports leading to compromising accounts.
- Similar problem as /afking out of a session is, you surely have a way to notice a sudden influx of a report aimed at one character within a short period of time. It happens, and it’s not infrequent.
The state of the Rated BG bracket.
- Lol.
This is for you, Blizzard. All this mess is in the game. We are trying to give you spoon-fed feedback, but you are not listening. Do something about it, or at least tell us explicitly that you do not care, cuz it certainly looks like it, but we are trying not to lose hope and spend our time on this. We are paying money for this.
We are waiting.
Cordially as usual,
Scheixanter, a passionate casual
Original post: Everything Wrong with WoW PvP – Open Letter
Original pdf with embedded pictures which may not be accessible through links anymore (delete spaces): https:// drive.google. com/file/d/1-T10l7pVf3isGh64mzUb0aJ3jMJgXo92/view?usp=drive_link
