How to revive WoW PvP:

PVP Arenas
1

Hi, fellow WoW PvP enjoyers. I believe to have figured out the best way to revive this very fun aspect of this game.

Situation: I played lots of PvP games in my life, and I must say that wow pvp is NOT competitively viable as a game. It is an inferior e-sport due to talents, abilities and other class mechanics being shared between Raiding, Mythic+, Arena, solo shuffle, RBGs, Open world content, leveling, etc. It is impossible to create a “competitive” experience, when this one tree has to be good for all these activities. This means that wow pvp will never be a viable esport and wow arena will never be relevant outside of the small niche within the small niche of wow as a game. So what is the solution? Here’s the thing: There is no solution to fixing wow pvp as an esport. However… Blizzard can fix wow pvp as a game mode, and make it extremely fun and so popular, that nearly everyone plays it. WoW PvP in the end is extremely fun, but its current reward system is frustrating and bad.

Problem: If you are a casual PvP player, there is one way to get rewarded for playing wow PvP: You queue solo shuffle and work towards your elite set appearance. This is why deflation matters to people: People play for rewards. If you don’t get rating, you get zero rewards for playing pvp. At this point almost everyone has gear. Just gearing is not fun enough for people to spam solo shuffle though. There is also something called “skill inflation” in wow, where the playerbase has played the game for a long time and is collectively skilled at it.
WoW PvP is extremely fun as said. Random BGs are fun. Epic BGs are a little less fun due to ashran, but if you actually play the map and skirmish for flags, it is fun too. There are tons of little potions, gadgets, tools, etc.

Solution: Introduce very slow/grindy seasonal battlepass-style renown with a pvp reputation that includes all pvp rewards with the enchant, all elite appearances, weekly quests for reputation, tabard, the gladiator mount, etc. Elite arena players have their title, and their elite achievement as the reward. That suffices. The way to fill the renown could be anything. World PvP, random BGs, RBGs, 3v3 Arena, etc. This would incentivize to do all weeklies and to dip your toes into all types of PvP content for fun, and I mean for fun, because rating matters less with my proposed system. Everyone, who plays most of the season, gets almost all rewards minus a few. I think this would make pretty much all PvErs play PvP as well just to get cosmetics, and in the end, I think they will enjoy it too, because in this case people will not care about rating as much. This will make people do World PvP, Battlegrounds, etc. the entire season and it disincentivizes fotm rerolling, if the renown track works the same as other renown in the game.
Currently the developpers lead all the players to solo shuffle with their reward system, but what’s the point? Wow pvp, and especially solo shuffle is not competitively viable. The type of play the video below promotes is disincentivized by the developpers, because of the reward monopoly for rated play:

A renown track would move the rated rewards to grindy participation rewards. It would definitely kill the competitive scene, but what is dead cannot die anyway. It will breath a log of fresh air into wow pvp, and introduce more of a “classic-vibe” to it, where people play for fun/enjoyment and work slowly, but surely towards rewards without stressing out about rating. In the end we all play for fun, don’t we?
Bring new Epic BGs, new BG maps, new world PvP zones, and new fun casual PvP features. Arena is dying and has no future. It’s not the strength of this game.

Edit: After disabling chat I’m having a lot of fun playing solo shuffle again. Look guys, my intention is not really to just remove all the rewards from arena 3v3, but I simply want just playing any form of pvp to be way more rewarding. I want to highlight though that if they were going to implement my idea with a seasonal pvp renown and a "gladiator-quality mount:, I would ofc expect that actual gladiators and solo shuffle legends too get a recolour of it. Same for people, who are 2400 rating in RBGs. I don’t like rewards being fully exclusive to 3v3, and I think it’s better for the game, if the reward structure is a little bit less concentrated in rated pvp, so people have joy and feel progress, even if they suck at the game :blush:

1 Like
2

Nope. Nobody cares about achievments, nobody inspects you, nobody wants them. But people care and recognise a special elite set, a cool weapon enchant, a glad mount. Those that take skill to get. There are already participation awards in the game. Not everyone should get everything by afking in a corner in a bg or trolling around 1300 rating in shuffle.

8 Likes
3

Only a tiny niche of a tiny niche of a tiny niche cares about 3v3 arena as a competitive esport. It should not have monopoly over the rewards. Not saying they should not support arena anymore, but it should be played for fun. It should not be an unpleasant experience for people to just get cosmetic rewards out of pvp, because other forms of pvp have barely any reward at all, and solo shuffle is also just a variation of 3v3 arena at the end of the day. That’s what kills it. A fun-oriented mindset is better for the game than a rating-oriented mindset, where people ask for inflation, because they don’t get any rewards out of playing. (I reached 1800 btw, I just dropped down to 1700 for 2 unlucky lobbies). I had loads of fun doing pvp, until I tried solo shuffle and cared about rating for rewards. I only like doing BGs, world pvp, etc. However, doing this content has 0 incentive outside of just the fun of doing it, but in a MMORPG, people ofc want to be rewarded as well. The casualization of wow pvp is the only way to save it, because in the end: That’s most enjoyable, least frustrating, and wow pvp’s strength is the fun casual content, and not arena as a competitive mode. What do you get in LoL for challenger? You get a recall and a border. Most rewards you get from playing LoL are participation rewards from the season pass to get skins. Why does wow not work like that?

3 Likes
4

Dude, I get it, you hate arena but you want the free rewards. Then when people figure out those rewards are now meaningless, they will not even grind them, and then the game is dead for good.
But you are not even a pvp player, you are a Mythic+ hero, it is pretty infuriating that you come here and suddenly have all the soultions to fixing WoW pvp, which like I said, you haven’t even played.
I have a similar solution: if you complete 50 mythic dugeons in a season, you get KSM. IF you complete 150, you get KSH, and over 300 = Rank 1 M+ title. + All the rewards, portals, gear, etc.
Nobody would even care, it will only show how much free time you got, not how much skill. People don’t care about which neckbeard is more jobeless then the other.

I like wow arena for this exact reason, I want to gear up in 1 week, do my goal push in a a day or a few, and be done for the season. Thats it. I don’t want to be forced into season passes, filling “engagement” bars or whatever.

ALSO, if you want the PvP to be just for fun, why do you care so much about the rewards from it? Is not just the experience of doing it that you enjoy?

3 Likes
5

I started wow in may and I’m honor level 27. What does this tell you? I played way way more pvp on various characters than I played m+. My observation is true. The entitlement of arena to hog all rewards is what makes this game mode so dead. You get nothing for the fun content, and you only get rewarded for the chore that is full of burnt out toxic people in shuffle, who just rage at everything. I got told in shuffle to commit sudoku by 4 players so far, and in almost every lobby people say “xyz person is trash, go tunnel him”. How is this fun? You’d have to be blind to not see that this kills the fun of pvp. Then I join a BG and it’s so much more fun, you duel people for flags, etc. You defend objectives. In world pvp lots of funny stuff happens. But in the end: The developpers bruteforce the playerbase into the worst version of wow pvp, which is arena.

1 Like
6

So you played the game for 3 months and now you are suddenly finding solutions to fix the PvP scene, which has existed and some of us have played for over 15 years.
I know you are a kid/teenager, and I don’t mean it in a negative way at all, but its better not to focus on things like this for now and enjoy whatever you can get out of this game, because it’s a very devisive topic with many opinions that is not going to move in any direction, AND it probably won’t change in any way based on OUR forum posts either way.

Again, you haven’t answered me this. What stops you from enjoying PvP exactly that way, doing unrated stuff? You get the exact same gear, so how are you bruteforced into doing arena by Blizz? Oh, you want the rewards… but what about the effort?

1 Like
8

Ok, I was getting trolled, Its very late here at night.
Have a nice day man, and all the best in life.

1 Like
9

Just F it man, I’m not trolling, but go to sleep.

Also, as an added contribution: If people play for fun, rather than just rewards from rating, don’t you think that this will shift a lot of people from solo shuffle to arena 3v3, RBGs, etc? LFG for these activities is completely empty and voided.

10

If you dont get rewards for getting higher in rating then theres no reason for majority to even try. Just like Bloodmyst is saying, its asking for literally free rewards.

Its like going into m+2 and just spam it like he said for 50-100 and get the absolute best gear, KSM, portals, everything. Why would ppl hunt for +20s if they dont need it? Alot of ppl try to get to +20 before they quit. Imagine only needing to rush through +2s and then be done.
Feels like valor points farming all over again which made m+ scene worse.

But no. Making rewards just because of X amount of time played is not good, you have to make ppl actually want to play it to earn something. Otherwise 3v3/RSS will be even more dead. Since alot of ppl actually play for rewards.

11

I don’t disagree that arena would have less players, but pvp overall will have way more players and it will be way more fun to play. I think with my suggestion most PvE players and casual world questers would do tons of PvP, and maybe they will enjoy it. Look how much toxicity and salt there is in ranked solo shuffle. People are clearly not having fun. It’s filled with people, who have lost their mind. That’s not good for the game long term. Arena in wow pvp is just not fun for many players compared to BGs/world pvp/etc. Wow pvp’s strength is its casual content, and that’s where the devs should lead the players to. Variety of pvp activities. Not a dying pseudo-esports arena.

I think the audience, which my suggestion would completely evaporate is the boosting and scripting/cheating. Almost nobody would do this stuff anymore, when the reward is participation-based.

12

Blockquote
Dude, I get it, you hate arena but you want the free rewards. Then when people figure out those rewards are now meaningless, they will not even grind them, and then the game is dead for good.

I don’t think this is necessary true, since its a working thing in like cod. You have a battlepass nothing is locked away its about have fun and you can progress the battlepass by time.
For me is a very negative thing in wow pvp that if you have free time to play only in sudden times, you can get really screwed because sometimes you play your rating win games and climb, and then you log in later and you get totally destroyed because the there are fewer players and u get harder setups. And by the end, you will win a couple of rounds and you stop queuing because you are afraid that you will run into a 0-6 and lose days of hours of progress… This is not good for the community because people will play like ahh I reached this rating I won’t queue because I don’t want to lose my rating and that means fewer player longer queues… Tonight I run into a 0-6 ofc you can say its a skill issue, but what we need to understand as a community is that if people are getting punished this badly potential pvpers will just exit the game and that is not good for any of us.

2 Likes
13

Way more fun for casuals to get destroyed in PvP for sure.
Way more fun for actual PvPers to feel their brackets is even worse because casuals wants more for free.

Reason for toxicity is quite easy. Blizz allowed it for too long so it infested into ppls behavior. Just look at LoL, you think its much better there? Or maybe CS:GO?
The only place ive seen where its not that much is FFXIV and its because they shut it down hard and fast.

If people dont want to do the content for the reward they are doing they dont have to. If they want to get the rewards they have to do it. Its just that simple. People expect PvP to be just as easy as m+ and when alot of these ppl who believe they are amazing hits a wall, they complain about it instead of improving. Ive met alot of those ppl and even had friends who are like that.

They could make rewards for casual PvP but the better rewards should always be with actual ranking. People seem to forget that actually getting good in the game should be rewarded, not with the X amount of time you put in casually.

Boosting might be gone. But if blizz rly wanted it gone they could have done that years ago.
Scripting/Cheating will not. Some people believe they need something to be good otherwise they are bad.
Noone is telling you that you HAVE to do ranking. I hate participation rewards since it always feels like its the people who wants something for free without actually having to put effort into it that wants it.
If you want to get people to do more casual PvP/BGs/WPvP then ask for other rewards for it.

And battle passes are usually based on certain cosmetics you get which is payed or is just its own thing. No idea why you wanted to try to make that sound like its related to the PvP scene of rewards.
Or you want to pay for the battlepass to get the rewards passively casually in normal bgs? God, dont give blizz ideas.

People feel too entitled to get free rewards for no effort. Like I said before, you can tell blizz to make new rewards to get more ppl to play bgs and all that but change something thats been going on for literally years because casuals wants it is not the best move. That could potentially piss off actual PvPers instead.
So what do you rather want in PvP? Those who put effort into being good or casuals that dont care?

14

Yeah it is. I played LoL today, made friends with someone and added them to steam. Didn’t have that happen in even a single solo shuffle lobby, even though wow is a mmorpg :joy: The LoL community is way less toxic these days, but there are a few rare toxic apples that get banned after their first rage anyway. I play LoL for fun. I used to be high elo there in high school, and now I just yolo sometimes for fun. I also play wow pvp for fun, but I also like rewards ofc. However wow pvp does not offer a single reward, unless I’m playing a ranked mode and climb to certain ratings. Also, unlike wow, League is an actual competitive pvp game, and the saltiness is its biggest weakness. How would wow profit from just the saltiness, but without being a competitive pvp esport? Ofc it doesn’t. That’s obviously why it’s dead. Lol.

I disagree. Other actual pvp games also have most of their best rewards as rewards for just playing a lot. In LoL you just get ranked border and recall at the end of the season for reaching challenger, which is infinitely harder to achieve than any wow rating for sure. Most of the rewards are just skins that you get passively. Wow arena players are extremely entitled though to hog all visual rewards to brag about being good in their dead game mode. Sorry, if my words are harsh, but this is the truth. Wow pvp would be way bigger and way more players would play, if you could just do the content you enjoy and got cool rewards for it instead of this gatekeep ego mentality. This is what kills pvp. The force to make people play arena and try to climb, or otherwise get nothing.

I suggest a change to pvp renown, so people can just play pvp the way they enjoy and get most of the cool stuff after a few months of weekly play.

15

You get mark of honor which you can buy older seasons transmog (not elite) with. So its not the most “glorious” reward but its still there.
Big difference between a company that dont rly put much effort into PvP and an actual game that do.
PvP is second in WoW, which is also why alot of us dont want casuals to make it even easier. I could easly see it that people just rush the rewards and then never play again either. So you get a full rush of PvPers and it will be even more dead later.
Congratz, you could then have killed of all brackets instead and only the BG might be somewhat alive… Which it is even today.

Which other PvP MMO gives you the best rewards passively with no effort?
BGs is literally PvP with just a few ppl putting in the effort while rest half afk.

Its also the truth that the casual players, like yourself apparently if so, feels extremely entitled to want all the visual rewards without putting in the actual effort to get it. Sorry if my words are harsh, but this is the truth.
Entitlement goes both ways.

It would for a short time then its quite a high chance for it to be more dead on all brackets.

No. Whats killing PvP is blizz being idiotic with balancing and failing the MMR system. Most likely alot more but hardly because of the “rewards”.

16

People feel too entitled to get free rewards for no effort.

I really don’t understand this concept. I could say its just gatekeeping. We would like more people to play arenas so we can get instant queues. If they would implement this battlepass idea we would get much much more healers, and much less toxicity in my opinion because people wouldn’t be mad for losing ratings (because they wouldn’t). Maybe I’m wrong idk. About the cosmetics… well what do you earn now? elite set? recolor, and mount… you don’t earn anything. You level up your gear, which scales up to a fix ilvl when u enter pvp. Not talking about games like Guild Wars where you could just make a lvl1 char and could join pvp straight away and you would get a full pvp set on the char. The idea is, if you want to pvp we wont put it behind a grind wall where you need to spend x amount of hours with mostly boring things to reach the point where you can actually play the game in the way you want to… Its just a very old-school mentality. I remember a streamer talking about the issue how much a new player needs to do if they want to pvp. lvl up, gear up, farm reputation, farm mats, farm honor, farm conquest and yes then you can start to learn arena…

17

Recently I joined a losing BG, and then I was the difference for winning, because I won a duel for a flag and managed to defend it 3 times. I really enjoyed this type of epic feeling compared to arena, but I get nothing out of playing BGs. No transmog, etc. They are so elitist, they don’t even give the conquest saddles for non-rated content. How does that make sense? I hate solo shuffle, but I love doing PvP in general. I like fighting other players, but I think arena is just lame. I also don’t see the appeal of wow arena as a competitive game, so what’s the point of holding unto it and gatekeeping? I looked at classic era recently, and people there seem to be more enthusiastic in classic era about pvp than in dragonflight, even though they don’t even have arena :joy::joy::joy: They just seem to duel and do BGs, and it’s the oldest version of the game. Why not return to the roots of the mmorpg?

I got this recommended on youtube recently and I bet this dude is having more fun than most dragonflight pvpers:

18

But than there is an issue no? Why are people not afking in cs or cod? Because they enjoying the game… If you join a bg and you afking then it means the game is not fun for you… no?

1 Like
19

Why would they ever play arenas if they can get it through BGs and other instances? Casuals wouldnt care about 2s, 3s or even RSS if they could get the reward by half afking in BGs.

“I remember a streamer talking about the issue how much a new player needs to do if they want to pvp. lvl up, gear up, farm reputation (not needed), farm mats (not needed), farm honor (takes 1-2days), farm conquest (If you are here every week from season start you can easly cap in like 2 hours or even less if you put effort into it or just play daily BGs) and yes then you can start to learn arena… (which you still can even when you do all that. Theres millions of guides out there.)”

Even doing those barely takes effort. The longest thing to do, is lvling up. And thats not a bad thing to do.
BGs while getting honor gear to actually start learning.
If I joined guild wars TODAY and started PvPing without knowing anything, would that make it amazingly fun?

I thought MMOs were about grinding and getting better.
I guess I got old and people just want things for free now :person_shrugging:

Do I really have to explain that to you? Do you actually believe people play those games for cosmetic rewards or for the actual gameplay? Whats making the game fun for them?

So you have to get something to enjoy it. Alright, so you believe you need the rewards to feel its worth it.

Go play classic era and do the PvP, you might feel its more suitable and enjoyable. Who knows :person_shrugging:

Alright, so, what is the roots of the mmorpg?
Why do you believe your definition is what suits WoW the most?
Why do you believe your opinion has higher meaning and understanding than mine?
Why do you believe only yours is correct?

You have your opinion on what could be the best for WoW but you also have to remember if you are wrong you could make it 10 times worse.

20

Kind of, but I said it should be very grindy

I disagree there. Getting better in mmos is usually something community-based, and I didn’t say they should remove 3v3. They should just not put all rewards there, and just let you a tabard+title. It should not be the main progression in my opinion. If you get no rewards, unless you get better, it sucks for MMOs imo, because it makes people not play for fun anymore. Wow pvp is most fun, if you just mess around, do some world pvp, do some BGs and play objectives, etc. Wow pvp is least fun if you completely hyperobsess about your UI, search all the weakauras, and spend 4 hours crafting your perfect UI to then finally play the game and have completely mentally insane people in shuffle telling you the most vile things and get 0 rewards unless you outperform veterans, who have played for 12 years hard and then you have to play enough games to nullify bad RNG, which is hard with queues… Solo shuffle and 3v3 arena reward monopoly is killing the game.

21

I thought MMOs were about grinding and getting better.
I guess I got old and people just want things for free now

I guess that’s why MMOs are in their golden age…
I got old for sure. Im an of wow player. I was there in vanilla, I was in a Grand Marshall group, I was doing the grind daily. Now I’m working, I have couple hours daily, maybe weekly, and the 12min queue, and if I’m unlucky the -50 rating ‘reward’ or getting whispers from some toxic wannabe is not really appealing. And unfortunately, by the numbers it looks I’m not alone with this.

1 Like