Old players are leaving the game, not even necessarily because of issues with the game itself, but also just moving on in life and no new blood is joining the PvP scene because WoW PvP (and also the game in general) is neither convenient, nor sexy and by that I mean the ceiling for being good at WoW is having 600 viewers on Twitch, making 800€ in subs a month and being called dogsheit by your chat all day long, everytime you do a mistake.
Genuine question:
Is it better to prune the game, making it more boring for veterans, but increasing it’s longevity by being more accessible or keep it hardcore?
Personally
I’d put everything on the table to get old and new players playing this game
I just want to play
Edit
I’d rather see a massively revised PvP tab , I’ve mentioned it multiple times
Also more content for PvP and just put some effort into it for once rather than begging for the bare minimum in getting the game mostly balanced
LoL is drastically complex. Yet is wildly successful. I know nothing about WoW pvp as i dont play WoW pvp
I can only tell you why i dont pvp in WoW while partaking in pve in WoW and playing other games for pvp.
Reasons i dont partake in WoW pvp
i have to level and gear any specc or role i wish to play from scratch in a game mode which isnt pvp.
classes have way too many CDs / CCs to make the game mode realistically fun. When i watch pvp games its incredibly hard to identify whst players are doing even on a core concept.
waiting 2 hours to get into a queue due to a lack of healers is a real put off giving the game mode a chance.
no account wide progression.
In LoL, DoTA 2, Guild wars 2, Overwatch 2 i can log in and choose a char plug in and play, even if the modes hold high complexity and demand skill wise i can simply play.
I can rotate roles with friends to ensure we all have time playing dps and heals to ensure queues pass quickly with 0 cost my account still progresses, while in WoW i sacrifice time on my main for the sake of queue times.
CD usuage and more is just far more readable.
To the question, pruning itself no, u cant just apply pruning to every specc in the game, because its not every specc that needs to be pruned. However even in a pve setting you can look at some classes and see parts of its kit is bloated and could use a trim in those localised areas.
So if ur question is, if the skill floor was lower, without damaging its skill ceiling, and pvp was less intimidating to get involved with.
Yes id be more likely partake in pvp.
To its strict mechanics however i cant comment on and how to make that happen i cant give any knowledge on.
This too, u see so little content which involves pvp added that it doesnt hand that excitement to really get people trying it.
I don’t think that’s possible, since classes are too complex to even get started with, which is the main reason for the high skill floor, but you can’t prune that without affecting the ceiling. It’s very complicated, due to the nature of WoW being a MMO.
So the question is, whether to lower the floor and the ceiling to make game more accessible or keep both as high as they are and watch it slowly die?
For the love of god, please do not start with removing class complexity
I’m not the best player at all, evidenced by my rating experience but that is NOT the answer. The game isn’t complicated on the class side of things in my opinion. It’s factors that run alongside it that really drive the issue, like addons for information management
I don’t want to play Warcraft of Legends or Legends of Warcraft
MOP is regarded as one of the best PvP expansions , and it was loaded with class abilities
I have this issue as well, I’m watching AWC but first I have trouble understanding who’s on what team and then even understanding what are these guys even doing But I always blamed it on being a noob
And its been done in prior, MoP, no pruning yet pvp had none of the complaints surrounding its complexity.
As someone who doesnt pvp.
The difficulty is a lack of readability.
Lets look at fire mage. With fire mage, it has 2 offensive primary cooldowns. ROP And combustion.
Now as a player watching a fire mage, with 0 pvp experience i can visually understand what a fire mage is doing. Why its doing it, and whats going to happen. It has 3 defensives, 1 puts a shield on him visually the other visually shows the ice block, and the 3rd which makes 3 more of himself.
Now, lets take another class, unholy DK.
Unholy DK has multitudes of different CDs so it makes it hard for me to identify exactly what CD has been used creating a inability to read the situation with ease. But also the player himself has to know how to use each CD.
Same with rogues.
The complexity will reduce if u make it easier, for players to identify when to use CDs i.e less of them to align. And the opposing player will find the situation easier to read snd know ehats upcoming.
I think there are defintly things u can do to improve the situation.
I think the outdated networking system that we call LFG and the long queue times for solo shuffle is a bigger contributor to the ‘killing’ of PvP than the floor and ceiling of classes. How many classes can we genuinely say are ‘complex’ for a new player?
despite the fact that people were saying pvp is dying for the past 15 years i rather play wow until its dead than playing a pruned boring version of it.
WoW PvP will never be super popular like LoL, CSGO etc. The barrier of entry is way too high. Leveling your character, gearing, paying a subscribtion, finding mates etc.
wow arena is a bubble. Its super niche but i love the game. It would be cool if 10 mio players would play it sure but it is what it is. I played on private server for years that had 3k players online and pvp was playable to some extend haha so im not worrying about the future.
ah now its 2 hours xd whats next? 1 week? ques are long but mostly 5-30 mins.
Correct. Making a game mode brain dead doesnt make it more interesting. Nor appealing.
What makes a pvp system appealing is.
Combat that is both easy to understand at a ground level, with depth that builds a rewarding progression to mastering classes.
Hence why i dont agree a “prune” is the method forward.
I think theres so many cooldowns, defensives, Crowd controls all lapped in masses, that the combat is difficult read or understand as a non experienced player.
They just get slapped with a bunch of cc, cooldowns that theyre overwhelmed with exactly what and when to react to anything.
However making the game mode easymode, wont attract pvp players. Pvp is based on a competitive nature.
If the games easymode. The disparity between good and bad players is lost, therefore a motivation to get better dissapears.
I think something that’s overlooked is the general absence of social networks for your new/average PvP’er. How many of us can say we’re in a guild or community that we actively play with? A new player can’t use their solo shuffle rating to get 2s and 3s partners because of the general view that solo shuffle is just…a meme.
Then compare that to the experience of a new PvE’er. Casual guilds, social guilds, raiding guilds, m+ guilds everywhere. Barely any prejudice in tons of guilds, guilds and communities literally dedicated to learning. PvP does not have that. It’s no wonder more people go to PvE, it’s easier and a ‘safer’ space. That space becomes unsafe for them? They hop to a new guild that gives them that safe space again. A new player hops into a battleground or a solo shuffle and they just get flamed. PvP’ers themselves are one of the biggest if not biggest factor to the inactivity of the modes
Lets also take into consideration, they still havent answered problems concerning the fact WoWs pvp is nortiously balanced on comps and not individual classes which is leading randomised comps to having a degree of luck to them
But the issue currently as being expressed is not enough of us Noobs are entering pvp, trying it, or giving it a go for the game mode to build popularity.
In older versions of games like vanilla or TBC, every single spell mattered down to the actual weapon melee / ranged hit. Basically every hit with a sword or shot with a gun felt like it mattered, every spell made sense and played a particular role.
Now it feels like a clusterf*ck of so many things and none even feel that rewarding… imo… well, except MM Hunter, because we have 3 spells so my Aimed Shot still feels quite rewarding
Not saying I’m a pro but I’ve been playing this game since TBC and I got 2.2k in solo shuffle and 2k in arena with just regular playing for fun, not tryharding or pushing… so I don’t think I’m that big of a noob yet still most of the time I have no idea what’s going on in AWC, it’s not that particularly a pleasure to watch… but maybe it’s not a WoW issue but MMORPG issue
and btw I can’t imagine why a new player would want to play this insanely complicated game where you can’t even cuss because you will get banned… hard to lure players here unless they are attracted by the wokeness of this game … I think majority of players here are since pre-Cata and playing thanks to nostalgic base
If I would see these days playing someone arena, I would not play it. Billion of icons and information floating around.
Looks like playing some piano.
If to setup arena with all the macros, it’s just unreal amount of buttons for these days, I would prune as much as can. Venruki talking about this issue in one of the last videos.
No need as example 5 dots, make it 2 dots but make those 2 dots do dmg, make skills meaningful.
I think return to pruning would put the game in a grave imho, i rly do. I dont think killing ur current playerbase for the possibility of new players will work out well.
It didnt in legion, and to expect it to do so this time i think is crazy.
I think the vast quantity of CC and cooldowns could be aided, i think some classes needing pruning downwards abit due to excessive overbloat,
And a condense of offensive cooldowns with improved readsbility would go the right way.
However rapid pruning most defintly would kill the game not save it, players may complain today. But players also complained at legion / BFAs mass pruning also.
It was the inital reason the game saw rapid decline.
I have the feeling they will just give up on pvp, make PvE extremely good in 10.1.5 with the 5 man raid, and then try to fix PvP in the future, when they have time to figure it out. Right now, fixing pvp seems impossible without a full 30% cut of all abilities. The longer I think about it, the less it makes sense for them to actually fix pvp short term. How would they even do that without risking to kill PvE too? The only way would be to disable spec talent trees in pvp and make very small PvP talent trees for pvp-only (I’m genius)
But I always blamed it on being a noob 
… I think majority of players here are since pre-Cata and playing thanks to nostalgic base