Let PvPers play PvP in Shadowlands

[Wwhelp-dragonmaw (Wwhelp)]

@Sharja-burning-legion

In WoW there are way to many variables to count someone else opinions how “easy” is to get to viable point

When it comes to obtaining gear in the old system, the variance was not that wild at all, since you got something out of losses in random BGs too.

@Sharja-burning-legion

For one dude being viable means 465 from couple M+ and he is set.
For other being viable means having near bis gear.

Within the context of relative viability, in the old system, that was not the case, straight up. The point where things are literally impossible was a lot less stringent with the old gear, though that was, like I said earlier, also something to do with the class design allowing much more outplay, and gear not jumping up your effectiveness as ridicilously as it does now.

Still, your path of progress demanded much less time investment, no matter what your threshold for viability was. If you wanted full bis, it was fully deterministic, and attainable via nothing but casual activities, on a casual schedule.
Whether that’s good for the game is another argument, but that was absolutely the case back then.

[Ishayoe-frostmane (Ishayoe)]

Alright, long rant incoming. I’m sure you all know what this means…

“Enjoy”

The gearing system in BfA is extremely broken. This affects both PvE and PvP, but it affects PvP most of all because PvE’s rewards a little more crazy and out there. If there’s gonna be some crazy powerful new bonus or other effect, it’s probably going to come from PvE.

Ironically, this is a response from Blizzard to try to keep PvP a little more pure. Yeah, it’s not working.

Blizzard wants PvP and PvE rewards both to be useful in both. It’s a noble goal to be sure, but there are two massive hurdles in our way:

1. The weekly rewards and caps, which provide the strongest rewards in the, are given independently in PvE in PvP. Thus the least timegated reward is always given to those who do both. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem if this is kept reasonable, but when you get geared twice as fast? Then it’s a problem.
2. The balance between PvE and PvP items depend on specific circumstances and the most popular builds in any particular game mode. This makes the balance extremely brittle. PvE items becoming BiS in PvP or vice versa (although this almost never happens, it has happened with a mage trinket!) is just a meta shift away.

In order to get this stuff under control, we’re going to have to get gearing under control. And yes, that’s essentially a pun.

I want less RNG, and I want less caps. I should get one random chest. If I do PvP and PvE I get more choices from that chest, but I still get just one chest.

Now I will get the same amount of rewards even if I PvP and never PvE.

But PvE might still contain rewards that are very powerful or even mandatory in PvP.

This is extremely hard to solve without some contrived garbage like PvP Power. PvP Power basically takes a sledgehammer to the problem and solves it by sheer brute numbers. It’s going to give a lot of dissonance, and it might have to get balanced around open world mobs and lots of other things. It’s an ugly solution.

But the gear must, nevertheless, confer an advantage to PvP’ers that PvE’ers simply don’t benefit from.

So what mechanics do PvP’ers take advantage of that PvE’ers don’t? Well, honestly not much. There are a few mechanics that are sort-of hidden in the game today that we can put back on items so that PvP’ers need to equip them. That’s probably a good start.

For example PvP items could:

• Reduce CC durations (from e.g. 40 seconds down to 8 - not further )
• Introduce diminishing returns
• One of the trinkets is once again “the PvP trinket” (although a choice for the 2 others would be great, too!)
• Make you take less damage from certain spells (i.e. PvP specific changes)
• Make you give more damage with certain spells (i.e. PvP specific changes)
• Introduce borderline mandatory effects like Conflict and Strife

How do we get PvE items out? Well, if the price for 5% extra damage is to risk you getting CC’s for 20 second polymorphs… yeah, not worth it.

How do we make sure new PvP’ers don’t get trampled? It’s simple: Professions. Cheaply made low quality items that contain all the effects PvP’ers need to get started. Now with controllable stat distributions thanks to another innovation by Shadowlands.

And even if you don’t have some of them, these things like lower CC durations mean a lot less in random BG’s where people are just slapping one another at random. But they mean A LOT in competitive PvP, which is exactly what we want.

And the effects that make you take less damage while stunned or make you take shorter polymorphs? Very little effect in PvE. In fact PvE effects can just ignore it.

We get increased transparency in the way the spell effects work and we get mandatory PvP gear in high-end PvP. We get rid of a trinket slot, perhaps both, so that PvE trinkets can’t come in and cause trouble, and we get some very useful set bonuses and other goodies on our PvP items.

And there is no need for PvP Power.

[Sharja-burning-legion]

@Wwhelp-dragonmaw

When it comes to obtaining gear in the old system, the variance was not that wild at all, since you got something out of losses in random BGs too.

Not really, It used to take really long time compared to effort and time of running a couple of M+.

[Wwhelp-dragonmaw (Wwhelp)]

@Sharja-burning-legion

Not really, It used to take really long time compared to effort and time of running a couple of M+.

In TBC it did take a lot longer indeed. In the following expansions they gradually reduced the time investment to the point where some people questioned what the point of gearing is at all when its so trivial. M+ is also not deterministic, relies on a key-upgrading grind and/or a boost, or an already existing clique in general that you can leverage.

Boosting and using your social circles to help you out were also possible to leverage with the old exp PvP systems, but you did not have them as a mandatory prerequisite in the same way as you do now, if you wish to have an expedient progression.

No matter how you spin it, the old system was much more time-friendly than the current one. You could in theory plow through the entire progression in a single day once catchup cap reached a certain point.

The amount of time invested needed varies between people, but if you apply those same conditions/handicaps between the 2 comparisons, you’ll always end up ahead with the old one, in terms of said time-friendliness.

Do YOU see what I am trying to say? You can’t compare “progress-raider backed up by a dedicated guild” to “random dude queing for BG after dinging max”, the points of comparison need to have a reasonable degree of parity.

[Sharja-burning-legion]

@Wwhelp-dragonmaw

Do YOU see what I am trying to say? You can’t compare “progress-raider backed up by a dedicated guild” to “random dude queing for BG after dinging max”, the points of comparison need to have a reasonable degree of parity.

You still are talking like it’s the same for everyone. And no you don’t have to be black or white. There are a lot of shades of gray in between.

There was never a time in history of WoW to gear up as quickly as now if you put effort into it. While you are saying the opposite. So which one is true?
None. It all depends and no your opinions are just that, opinions.

[Wwhelp-dragonmaw (Wwhelp)]

@Sharja-burning-legion

You still are talking like it’s the same for everyone.

No, I’m saying you can’t compare the progression system of today when you participate into it as a non-casual, vs someone who uses the previous one as a casual.

If you could “get nzoth ready in 2 weeks” in bfa system, what stopped you from being topped off with progression in the same time investment during WoD?

@Sharja-burning-legion

There was never a time in history of WoW to gear up as quickly as now if you put effort into it.

False, sorry. Was faster in MoP and WoD as far as PvP is concerned. And you could make meaningful progress solo then too, so you weren’t tied to finding groups or having friends online to progress.

The entire argument was about casuals benefitting from current system less in terms of how one can progress through it. No matter what metric you want to apply, a casual will have an easier time progressing through the one we had in MoP and WoD.

[Thýri-doomhammer]

Doesn’t really matter. Pvp is trash in wow.

[Verdill-burning-legion (Verdill)]

@Thýri-doomhammer

Doesn’t really matter. Pvp is trash in wow.

NO IT’S NOT!

* loses to fire mage / assa rogue *

Ok, you’re right.

[Sharja-burning-legion]

@Wwhelp-dragonmaw

If you could “get nzoth ready in 2 weeks” in bfa system, what stopped you from being topped off with progression in the same time investment during WoD?

Time.

@Wwhelp-dragonmaw

False, sorry. Was faster in MoP and WoD as far as PvP is concerned.

Here you go again. I used to level my alts in WoD since it was fastest way to just not have trash gear, the part of actually having decent gear wasn’t as fast as now with M+.

[Wwhelp-dragonmaw (Wwhelp)]

@Sharja-burning-legion

Time.

You could get a full set in a single day. Just finding a group for 1 M+ can easily take more time than getting the Ashran weekly and a random BG done.

[Bugged-stormscale]

Torghast will not be a problem to me. Its fast to do instead of grinding reputation for 4 weeks for 10 factions. Anima Power can be obtained from PvP victories just like Azerite Power.

But if PvP gear even at highest Rating will be inferior compared to Mythic+ and Mythic Raids I will not play Shadowlands. So either Ion Nazzikostas stops being that Elitist PvE jerk and lets PvP be PvP or people wont be coming back to WoW PvP.

I have to agree with Thýri. Even if we get proper PvP gear back its not going to save BAD CLASS DESIGN and BAD GAMEPLAY.

There is so many things wrong in this current version of WoW that I dont even know where to start.

[Nezarah-argent-dawn]

@Ishayoe-frostmane

Blizzard wants PvP and PvE rewards both to be useful in both. It’s a noble goal to be sure, but there are two massive hurdles in our way:

1. The weekly rewards and caps, which provide the strongest rewards in the, are given independently in PvE in PvP. Thus the least timegated reward is always given to those who do both. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem if this is kept reasonable, but when you get geared twice as fast? Then it’s a problem.

Why? Is the ultimate neckbeard not the one who has mastered both PvE and PvP, therefore deserving of twice the weekly loot?

This seems more like a problem related Mythic Raiding, because God forbid if the 0,1% had to PvP to grab a single piece of gear before the World First Race when a raid is about launch.

Same goes for PvP’ers when the Arena Championship is on, we better give them free championship gear to use as they please rather than actually have them use their own characters with their own loot progression.

The only problem is that the system is designed around 0,1% ELITE PLAYERS and the entire community is punished for it.

@Ishayoe-frostmane

The balance between PvE and PvP items depend on specific circumstances and the most popular builds in any particular game mode. This makes the balance extremely brittle. PvE items becoming BiS in PvP or vice versa (although this almost never happens, it has happened with a mage trinket!) is just a meta shift away.

Again, this is just bad design on a system, which is meant to encourage everyone everyone to play a different part of the game, but ends up punishing them instead.

Just let PvP’ers PvP and gear through PvP
Just let PvE’ers PvE and gear through PvE

JUST KEEP IT SIMPLE

[Ishayoe-frostmane (Ishayoe)]

@Nezarah-argent-dawn

Why? Is the ultimate neckbeard not the one who has mastered both PvE and PvP, therefore deserving of twice the weekly loot?

If he gets twice the weekly loot, he gets the higher ratings. If he gets the higher ratings, he gets the better loot.

It self-perpetuates.

Should he get more choices in his loot? Sure. Should there be items that are very good in both PvE and PvP at the same time? Absolutely. And heck, getting a new BiS item every 4 weeks isn’t even a problem either.

But getting twice as many items? Oof.

@Nezarah-argent-dawn

This seems more like a problem related Mythic Raiding, because God forbid if the 0,1% had to PvP to grab a single piece of gear before the World First Race when a raid is about launch.

Yeah, this is never happening to PvE’ers because PvE’ers are getting the best loot outside of straight stat distributions. I touched on that in my post.

@Nezarah-argent-dawn

Again, this is just bad design on a system, which is meant to encourage everyone everyone to play a different part of the game, but ends up punishing them instead.

Just let PvP’ers PvP and gear through PvP
Just let PvE’ers PvE and gear through PvE

JUST KEEP IT SIMPLE

The point is it’s not this easy! Unless you put in the exact same gear in PvP and PvE then there will be differences, and if there are differences there are requirements to farm the very best items at the high end, and then you can’t “just gear through ”, and of course the double reward rules of earlier makes it worse.

[Flower-aggramar]

@Yannila-silvermoon-2659

I went in with ICC heroic gear as frost mage, sitting at almost 30% haste unbuffed. I could kill fully PvP geared people in a deep freeze if I could cast, troll racial + icy veins + almost 30% haste unbuffed. I could get like 4 frostbolts and 2 ice lances in a deep freeze.

Was that pre-patch Cataclysm? because I remember frost in pre-patch could kill you in a deepfreeze using only icelance. Not so much before that though.

Resilience helped a lot prior to that, and if you didn’t run it as a mage, a warrior would only have to get half a second of uptime to make you grind rep with the floor. I remember being a restoration shaman stacking nothing but resilience and I could tank 2 wrathful geared rogues easily.

[Lrn-earthshaker]

I liked that back then, you could still win in pvp with HC gear, you’d be a glass cannon, highly rewarded only if you play well enough to not get caught. Worked especially well with mage, maybe hunter, classes like that

[Flower-aggramar]

I loved it too. You could choose between being tanky or glass cannon, which made it oddly balanced, and fun.

[Ishayoe-frostmane (Ishayoe)]

That is fun, but wouldn’t it be better if you can get the glass cannon set from PvP, too?

[Lrn-earthshaker]

mop wouldve been even better if there was a copy from each pieces of gear but with increased pvp power but no resil. Making it possible, no pve required

[Wak-auchindoun]

I fully support you, OP, even though I do very little PvP myself.

In my opinion, we should have four types of distinctly separated gear:

• Gear for PvP, e.g. with resilience;
• Gear for raiding, with effects that makes the gear superior for that type of content;
• Gear for five man content; and
• Gear for world adventure type content (which there should be more of).

All types of gear should be exclusively farmable from its type of content. People should not be insentivised to do other types of content.

[Sharja-burning-legion]

@Wwhelp-dragonmaw

You could get a full set in a single day. Just finding a group for 1 M+ can easily take more time than getting the Ashran weekly and a random BG done.

A full set of comparable to world quest gear.