-> Feedback thread with the goal of increasing Arena Participation! <-

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
145

Thanks to Pojke for such an amazing post .
Just my humble opinion and thoughts about that :

110% YES . Even tho I am not a type of player who would aim for that but its deffo encourage more ppl to play overall which makes more casual players to reach higher ratings in the ladder and get good dose of dopamine BCS of that :slight_smile:

also 100% YES (would be even good to add it in Cata :smiley: )

YES PLS

YES PLS x2 !!! That will let ppl find more connections and new friends and arena partners. Even tho it might be out of lore, but I doubt PvP community cares that much

This is the one I disagree. Even tho I understand how frustrating it can be on the highest rating to face some Double Rogue or whatever, but for me it was literally the start of the journey into pvp. When I joined the game 3 years ago, I was playing rogue and the only friend I found was also playing the same class as me, so we decided to give it a shot and just have some fun together. We were not thinking about Meta or how strong our comp or how braindead our comp, we were learning PvP and Arenas and having fun together. If that were restricted, I might never have met a good friend.

Really frustrating to feel some sort of disadvantage just because someone do better in PvE raiding and have opportunity to get better items BCS of that for PvP

Just few things I would like to see as well :

  1. Ability to gain Honor playing arenas
  2. Ability to buy gear / send honor to Alts (I believe same system we have in retail right now)
  3. And to encourage more ppl to play PvP maybe add some small rewards e.g. Small amount of gold per win, the ability to transfer conquest into pve currency, some pets, transmogs , toys etc . Even tho some ppl might just play it bcs of rewards not BCS of PvP by itself, it might hook up few ppl to keep playing PvP BCS its fun which will help community to grow .
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146

I completely agree with your points Minpojke except the Solo Shuffle one. Or let’s say I disagree with 50% of it. After I played solo shuffle on retail I don’t want that system on classic. For me it felt more frustrating and toxic than the usual brackets in classic. Maybe it was just retail.
So what I really like to see back is the wotlk pvp lfg tab. That tool was the best to find people or join groups and since they got rid of it (don’t ask me why), it made casually playing arenas way harder.
Btw. for the love of whatever. Fix the issue with crossrealm lfg on cata classic already. It was hard enough anyways to find someone to q with on cata but after the DS patch and disabling cross realm lfg it is just dead af.

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147

I agree with Minpojke on most parts here. I would also like to see more rewards for participating and also for achieving different milestones. I know in MoP we will have the red colored weapon enchant, elite transmogs and new mounts which are really great.

I’d like to put out some suggestions that could increase the daily/weekly games played overall:

  • Currencies/materials to be awarded from winning games
  • Weekly quest [Arena/Battleground] for playing 25 arenas (reward could be currencies, mystery box)
  • Weekly arena focused PvP (2v2, 3v3 or RBG) event that could last for example 6 hours on Sunday 18:00-00:00 (a quest or objective would pop-up with rewards). This would increase players attention for a specific bracket to be played during this time.
  • More lower tier rewards for obtaining milestone ratings (transmog, mount, mystery box)
  • Arena starting room “Ready-check”-lever (if everyone is ready to start the game, it would skip 30 seconds of the starting room time. So people wouldn’t need to ALWAYS wait for such long time to play the game.
  • Leaderboard in-game for participation, performance etc
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148

I would like to see Arena Skirmish and LFG added but not Solo Shuffle. Weekly inflation, cross faction, early dampening, and static slots for Glad and Rank 1 in 2s, 3s, and 5s are all a must! Rank 1 titles to be Class-wide would be a bonus!

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First off, I want to give massive props to Minpojke for this incredibly well-thought-out and passionate post. It’s rare to see someone with this level of expertise, experience, and community engagement take the time to lay everything out so clearly, and I genuinely believe that every single point made here is exactly what Classic PvP needs moving forward

You can trust Minpojke to hold amazing opinions regarding WoW PvP, he’s a veteran and knows the game in and out, he understand reward structures, class design, incentives, etc…his opinions are pretty much the same ones held by most of the real PvP community, and there’s atleast a few hundred thousand of us, if not more. He shares opinions with other intelligent experienced players regarding WoW PvP design aswell, like Snutz, Venruki, Cdew, Whaazz, Nahj, Xaryu and basically most of the influential PVP players. Most of us want the same thing from WoW PvP Blizzard: More skill-based rewards, healthy class design where skill is the absolute determining factor, where baseline abilities feel impactful, without too much mobility bloat, defensive cd bloat, micro-cc bloat, etc etc…which is what we’re seeing in retail right now, there’s way too much micro-cc, resto druids require x2 charges of swiftmend, x2 charges of NS, god-mode treeform on-top of Soul of The Forest, on top of way more + a ton of modifiers, just to be…the worst healer? What made MoP so amazing was the nice balance around cd’s, nice strong baseline abilities, with cc mattering a lot, and not too much modifiers.

In retail, simply adding more rewards will not fix the healer problem in solo shuffle. The reason healers aren’t queuing is because of the incredibly spiky constant dmg, the unbelievable amount of micro-cc, and just very stressful and triggering gameplay.

As someone who has been playing PvP since the early days—I’ve seen every era of WoW PvP, its highs and lows, and what works and what doesn’t. And I can confidently say that Mists of Pandaria was the absolute peak of WoW PvP in terms of class design, arena balance, gearing, and somewhat accessibility.

Why Blizzard Needs to Listen to This Post

Minpojke is 100% correct in his assessments of how to increase participation and make Arena better in Classic. PvP thrives when people have incentives to queue, a fair reward system, and a competitive yet accessible experience. His suggestions—bringing back 2v2 and 5v5 titles, adjusting dampening, making Rank One/Gladiator more achievable for dedicated players, and fixing MMR inflation—would all go a long way toward making Classic PvP feel truly rewarding again.

One of the biggest problems with Arena participation today is that there’s simply no reason for the average player to grind it. Minpojke hit the nail on the head: if rewards feel unattainable or like a waste of time, people won’t play. The proposed changes fix that. And I would like to add that wow in general has too few rewards in PvP, both in classic and in retail. There should be unique rewards at all different skill levels for casual, intermediate and hardcore players, because that’s simply what drives human engagement, everything revolves around reward structures, literally. So please think about adding more (cool) sets at higher ratings, more titles, more enchants, more unique skill-based rewards in general, including mounts, from the 2v2 and RBG bracket for example…adding an unique warlord mount to RBG would instantly increase participation by a lot.

MoP PvP Was The Best PvP

Mists of Pandaria delivered on every aspect of what makes PvP fun:

  • Gearing: PvP Power and Resilience ensured PvP gear was BIS for PvP, eliminating the need to grind PvE just to be competitive.
  • Class Design: Every spec felt viable, had depth, and rewarded skill expression.
  • Arena Meta: The 3v3 meta was balanced, with clear win conditions for every comp, and every class had a place.(though, classic mop could use a few changes, ensuring even better balance)
  • Solo Queue Potential: MoP PvP was accessible but still skill-based, making it great for both hardcore and casual players.
  • I would personally prefer an updated strong LFG system over solo queue, because quality>quantity, if it’s easy to find people to play with, then spending slightly more time looking for a matching player, is better than getting a queue instantly, and being mad constantly because your randomized teammates make mistakes, and/or because you’re matched with lower exp players. But this is a complicated topic, and even though I would definitely prefer a strong LFG system over solo queue, I’m not entirely opposed to having solo, but it must not interfere with the LFG-based brackets much. You could potentially add a solo queue bracket without rewards for example, which would balance out the brackets, and still give strong incentive for the “real” brackets, aka 2v2, 3v3 etc!

The Case for a MoP Era PvP Server

Classic Hardcore and Season of Discovery have shown that there is a demand for fresh, alternative ways to experience WoW beyond the standard Classic progression. A MoP Classic Era server—focused purely on PvP, with a streamlined gearing system, no forced PvE grind, and Solo Queue/Arena incentives—would be a massive hit. It would be the perfect home for dedicated PvP players who still want to enjoy the best version of WoW PvP without waiting for a full Classic MoP release.

Final Thoughts

Blizzard, this is the kind of passionate, constructive feedback that deserves attention. The PvP community wants to play the game, but we need a system that rewards our time and effort. Everything Minpojke suggested is a step in the right direction, and I sincerely hope you take this feedback to heart.

MoP PvP was peak WoW PvP—please consider making a MoP PvP Era server so players can enjoy it indefinitely! MoP was the peak of PvP movies, the peak of social media influence with twitch and all the streamers and youtube content, the peak of class design for both PvP AND PvE, the peak of cosmetics with the PvP enchant, elite sets and Challenge Modes etc, Peak of world PvP with timeless isle. Mists of Pandaria was probably and will probably be the best time of my life, and not only because I was young, but because classes felt so exciting and skillful to play, and cosmetics were awesome. Seeing rogue’s with the huge 2.2/2.3 enchant(glorious tyranny/bloody dancing steel) dancing around the arena whilst outplaying 3 people at the same time was the coolest thing ever.

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150

Thanks to Minpojke

I really hope the devs takes some of this to heart.

I have got a full time job Blizzard, I cant keep grinding (lvling/gold/gear) and spend hours on processes of the games that just arent “new or fun” anymore…it will make me stop playing.

I only play arenas and dont care about any other part of the game.

1.Please make a version of the game where I get gear on par with everyone else (instantly)
2. Reduce the amount of cc’s/root/breakers retail is killed because there’s too many cc’s - TBC/cataclysm is a good amount imo
3. Make it more FUN and competitive - Introduce better end of season rewards somehow…be creative -Maybe Rank one’s literally radiate golden sun shine - so that there’s no doubt this player means business.
4. Please make this game version STATIC - changes/patch updates shall converge towards zero with time and have the PROS make a voting system regarding changes. This way arena PvP could become and actual e-sport - community could grow and develop.

Thanks

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Currently, we have not had LFG cross-realm for 4 weeks on cata classic and we are out here talking about positive changes and ways to revive the community. Call it a day boiz and girls, please.

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I agree with everything

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Would like to send my appreciation to everyone providing constructive feedback. I’ve always enjoyed the PvP aspect and competing in this game, and it makes me happy to see so many people care.

Overall I think that some attention to PvP and arenas would have a positive effect on the game and the PvP scene. Personally there are many suggestions here that would have very minor impact for me how I play the game, however I would like to share my opinions on the topics that matter to me.

I major part of the reason me playing this game is the social aspect. Adding a solo queue / shuffle without ensuring the existing brackets remain exciting or desirable would reduce my interest of playing arenas on a regular basis. I like to play with people, and solo queue / shuffle removes much of the social aspect. Thus I’m worried that simply adding a solo queue without precautions to preserve the existing brackets would make 2v2/3v3 queues dead. If I solo queue would be a requirement for me in order to play, I would rather focus on another game the PvP aspect get consistent attention. That being said I am positive for a solo queue, I just want it done properly.

Class stacking is something that I would prefer not to have in the game. My main concern is double healer or tanks. My primary argument is that it is usually only fun for the side playing double healer or a tank. I’ve never had a fun game versus a double healer team, even if I ended up winning. By playing a double healer you greatly reduces the amount of teamwork and skill needed to win ( my experience versus double healer team is primarly RNG crits or my healer going oom. If the double healer team makes a critical mistake, just outheal and go again ), which ultimately reduces my joy from winning and losing.

LFG / Cross server system is kind of a no brainer in my opinion. Having a larger player pool to play with and being able to find them has no downside and a huge upside. To me it’s ridiculous that there is no proper LFG system to find players to play with.

PvE items / legendaries. Oh boy, where to start. I guess there is two primary reasons for why this has a negative effect in arenas for me. First one is that if I would like to try out another character, I feel like I have to get a few key items in order to be competitive. I would not go as far as to say it’s unplayable, but it feels like it and it’s not a good feeling. Secondly it feels like there are certain classes that has at certain points the possibility to acquire an item that has an effect ( essentially that it’s not the class or the player, it’s the item that’s good ) that makes that class really strong. Often making them one of the stronger classes. While I do understand that it’s impossible to make the game 100% balanced, I feel like the really strong PvE items make too much of an imbalance. Does not feel good. The quick fix I can see is to disable procc / use effects of PvE items, but I would prefer to not have any PvE items in arenas at all.

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The most important thing they need to add to any classic expansion is solo queue.
You can’t have any modern PVP game without a solo queue option.

I hope if they do go ahead with adding solo queue to MOP, they reconsider the implementation and stay away from the retail one.
The 6 round format used in solo shuffle has proved to be a lacking implementation that no matter how many band aids you apply to it, it will always remain flawed.

Main cons of 6 round format:

  • Worse RNG. Yes, it actually is worse compared to 6 normal 3v3 games due to the map never changing. Anyone that is familiar with WOW PVP should know how important the map is when deciding which team composition is more favourable to win.
  • Queue times. While the game time is not increased with 6 1-round games, you reduce the queue time, which makes for a more pleasant experience. It doesn’t feel good to have 30+ min wait times, even if you do play for longer when you’re actually in the game.
  • Griefing. People are likely to start griefing on purpose in later rounds. With only “1 round” there is no time to start griefing since the game is over by the time anyone dies.
  • Leavers. Leaving mid solo shuffle ruins the final CR calculations. You can have 3-0 because someone left after 3 rounds, instead of an obvious 3-3.
  • Wintrading. Because of the long queue times, Blizzard doesn’t punish missing the queue. This guarantees that, if you want to, you can end up in the same lobby with a friend of choice. Because the teams are “shuffled” around you can make sure that your friend can end up with AT LEAST 3 wins no matter what. There is no secret that right now end of season on retail is a complete win trading fiesta.
  • Fast dampening. Because you have 6 rounds, Blizzard had to increase the dampening ramp-up. This means healers have a completely AWFUL experience in solo shuffle, as they are being taken out of the game after only a few minutes. This fast damp also changes the gameplay from normal 3v3, so classes with immunities will do better in shuffle compared to normal 3v3. This makes any class balancing impossible for both game modes.
  • Healer MMR. Shuffling the teams means healers have a separate MMR pool. We thus end up with healer ratings being 150-200 behind DPS rating, due to lower player pool. This is also the main cause for cases where healers can gain 0 rating from a 4-2 score, because the enemy healer was just ~30-50 MMR below (which you get queued with after only ~2 minutes of waiting)
  • List goes on…

Hopefully they consider sharing the 3v3 pool for both SOLO and PARTY queueing, with each character having a separate MMR and visible CR for SOLO and PARTY options (similar to other PVP games).
This will increase normal party 3v3 participation as the queues will be available at any time during the day.

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let´s hope Blizz also cares^^

jeah, like i already said: solo queue has to be implemented into the already existing 2v2/3v3/5v5 and also RBG - brackets as a further option to play. NOT as something extra like RSS in retail. It has to be another possibility to play the game without taking something from the already existing system and further splitting the player base.

THIS! This is actually an extremely good idea. That way people can keep playing in the same brackets, without dividing the player base any further. But not just for 3s, also implement the possiblity to queue/play random for 2s, 5s & RBGs! This allows every twink and casual player to also play rated games. You also don´t ruin your serious rating if u decide u want to play a few rated games with randoms (at your rating) to practise/improve. Nobody can even complain about the unfairness of being mixed with teamed up people, since there would be two seperate ratings now anyway for everyone to see (u could also add extra titles for the solo rating). If the system just detects whether you signed up solo or in a team and accordingly adjusts the rating (after a win or loss) for the respective signup type then this would be the perfect solution for everyone. I think, having two seperate ratings (solo & grouped) for the same bracket would probably fix every problem there is (about a solo queue) and is probably the best idea/solution i have ever heard. good job!

I think there would be no downside with this for anyone and this (adding a solo queue without destroying the already existing systems) is probably the most important enhancement Blizzard can implement into the pvp scene and the 1. thing that should be done. Also with no downside for anyone would be:

2.: Add back the PvP tab to the LFG system.
3.: Allow us to search & play cross faction. (but only Arena, not for [R]BGs).
4.: Add back skirmishes and give us a bit of gold and/or honor as incentive to play them.

I think (almost - there is always someone special) no one can be against these 4 changes and they all would contribute massively to a healthier pvp community.

But with all the other changes proposed you have to be very cautious! Like with rebalancing classes, or weaken pve-items in pvp or even adding dampening and such stuff. There is a lot to disagree on and people will have vastly different opinions. If Blizz is not very very careful with implementing such changes then a lot of people could get really upset.

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I’d also like to bring up something great we’ve gotten. So hopefully these can stay for future expansions:

  • The current weekly Conquest Point cap (increased 4000 every week) is superb!
    I think many PvPers liked this change a lot. In my opinion this is one of the best changes that Classic got. This supports the modern way of playing: playing multiple alts, catching up during ongoing season and not feeling forced to play all characters every week.

  • Personal arena ratings allowing flexibility to choose who to play with.

Thanks for these :slight_smile:

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Remember that this increased conquest cap can hurt also (don’t get me wrong its good feature but can be bad also).

What I am trying to say is that there is not really good incentive to que arenas, because person knows that no matter what they are not really behind. They can start queing when arena ending is close and then que lot of games.

Because imagine if there would not be a catch up system place, there would be higher incentive to que since first week, because you dont want fall behind.

So there has to be another incentives for a person que, if similar system is going to used at mop.

One thing what could maybe done is that once your main character is geared, you could send any current conquest (or future ones === so you keep queing on main) to your alts. But with penalty so e.g

A sends 300 conquest to B character.
B character receives 250 conquest (as example).

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disgusting non-vanilla toons posting on this god fearing section of the forum. go back to your containment trash heap. Your heresy will be met with wrath when you meet your maker.

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The most important part is definitively the X number of spots by default for rank 1 / glad & players with alts taking only 1 spot total. I know countless of people including myself who did not even try to play 3s last season because the top ladder was filled with the very same persons and there was almost no open slots for glads

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Happy to see that there is a discussion about improving pvp in the upcoming expansions.
Overall +1 for your suggestions.

Huge fan of the solo shuffle idea as my past experience unorganized pvp is fun, trying to get best out of a situation is better than repeating the same every single match.

I know this thread is about arena participation, but i’d love to see some of those changes applied to RBG-s.

- Class stacking:
It’s just not fun when around 2k rating the only match what you get is 3-4 balance druids moonfiring the s#!t out of everyone (and the only viable comp is dotcleave). Just put a limit of max 2 players of the same class in each team.

- Point system:
You win 5-7 games in a row you get barely 20-30 points and then you lose 1 single match because you made a small mistake then you lost all your hard work in the past hour in minutes.
I know that’s how it works if you lose a lower rated team you will lose more points etc, but still most of the time those matches are against someone getting boosted or some highranked player on alts which is just not fair.

- Finetune matchmaking algorithm:
There’s no reason to put an 1.9k team against 2.4k teams (7 times in a row) just to get beaten to the ground all the time losing no points, wasting 5-8minutes. It’s not good for any of the parties, low rated teams will get demotivated and wasting time on something not even winnable, high rated teams will get no points either. Sadly this happens because on weekends there are only like 2-3 teams competing and most of them blowing up after a lose having to reform.

Even after all i still feel like the “average” player needs a lot of motivation to start playing again after all the bad experiences with anything pvp related. I’m also stopped playing arenas after wotlk as most of the good pvp-ers already had teammates, finding someone with skill/gear was pretty much impossible (also fighting only the top meta teams around 1.9k rating already didn’t help also when shadowmourne released it got even worse).

Most of the achievements/gear are straight not even achievable for players (i know that most of the players doesn’t care about this, but still).
In cata if you want to be competitive in rbg you have to play alliance and that’s it, as a horde player top team was around 2050 rating last season vs alliance around 2.5k, which means 2000/2100/2200/2400 achievements were not even possible to get even if you were top tier horde players (i guess this might be similar for arena).
You can say that “just reroll alliance” i’d rather not start a new character after playing one since classic, its just not that simple. You have to level a character, get into a raiding guild to farm BoE stuff which is used in arenas/rbgs etc (hopefully some of those issues will get solved with MoP).

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While I agree with almost everything in the post, I think the most involved people in these discussions are usually the high-end pvp community that have easier access to teams and want to maintain the status quo.

I see a lot of suggestions about solo queue but without rewards. That’s like adding in skirmishes and expecting it to attract a bunch of players.

I think the reality is, regardless of the version of wow, Pvp has been trending downwards for many years because for the large majority of the playerbase they can’t just login and play. Of course, if you’re a streamer, or have very consistent team mates (or a large array of them) then you can. But for your typical player that cannot play everyday, or has restricted hours, then arena becomes exceedingly difficult to participate in

Solo queue fixes that. I know the majority here won’t like that fact because they just want higher participation to maintain the status quo and do what they enjoy, but you’re just not going to get it with how gaming has progressed in the modern world. We’re in the era of convenience. Competiting games that rival Arena (Pvp orientated games, not exactly a like for like with arena) enable you to just queue up solo or in teams, and play for rankings.

I don’t think solo queue is perfect on retail, but I do honestly believe that for Pvp in wow to flourish, it’s the right direction albeit just needs some refinement. The rest of the playerbase just needs to adapt. Solo is a gateway into arena, enabling people to find team mates and play 2s/3s. Just make the rewards different (but both need to have meaningful reward systems)

Bar that, I fully agree with the changes to 2s & 5s, the changes to R1/Glad title requirements and how multiple spots shouldn’t be taken up by one account. It could also be an interesting concept to have rewards based on speccs to incentivize underperforming or less desireable speccs to jump into the arena… I don’t know if i fully agree with it but perhaps class specific gladiator ratings where you’re measured against your own specc only

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i feel the same way and know others but don’t worry about it man. this is a blessing in disguise because its been leading to the revival of pserver scene. one day soon blizzard is gonna lose the good classic audience permanently. pservers are the future and nothing is going to stop it.

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Indeed, thats a thing

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Agreed with everything that Minpojke mentioned! Let’s make classic wow pvp great again!