S1/S2 Arena point reset & casual players

WoW Classic Wrath of the Lich King Classic Discussion
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In the recent Arena Tournament, Holly Longdale was interviewed and outlined some changes that were intended to improve the experience of casual and lower-rated players in arena, including boosted points (already implemented) and a cost reductions towards the end of the season. It is easy to see why this will benefit casual players, which is fortunate since a truncated season 1 is otherwise incredibly punishing on casual players being able to slowly grind out their arena gear.

Source: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1097771358?t=01h22m19s

However, one of the proposed changes was a forced arena-to-honour point conversion between Season 1 and Season 2. This was not original to vanilla TBC. It is a feature implemented from Wrath of the Lich King, except that an accompanying feature, that the ending arena season’s gear becomes available for honour (and no BG marks were required), has not been implemented.

  1. Before this proposed change, lower rated casual players, who had been short of the 1850 / 2000 rating in S1 and therefore not able to buy the weapons / shoulders, could buy the S1 weapon / shoulder on day 1 of Season 2. Now they will have to wait another month for either of these items. The introductions of ratings on weapons/shoulders in S1 was already a change from TBC, and now casual players are being delayed acquiring these items for an even longer period into S2.

  2. Casual players, who have a lower arena point gain, as well as likely taking longer to reach 70, are more likely than higher rated players to lose a significant portion of arena points through the reset. They may be able to buy one or two arena items before the season ends, nearly have the points for a second or third item which would make a huge difference to their gear, but have to start all over again with saving points for this item in the new season through the reset. Effectively they could be prevented from spending nearly 30-50% of the arena points they had gained in S1 because of the discrete amounts needed for arena items.

  3. Converting arena points to honour points is useless for casual players who are less likely to have the time to play the BGs needed to get the marks they need for the items. Players are denied a resource they would otherwise be able to immediately spend and now made to grind another resource (marks) in order to spend their honour. This is not particularly fair on casual players.

The arena point to honour point conversion is overly punishing to casual players and should not be introduced, since it is not in keeping with the spirit of the other changes to the season from vanilla TBC. By all means, since Season 1 is so short and all teams have started at 0 rating, increase arena point gain and reduce costs on items. But do not take away to an even greater extent options and choices that casual players in vanilla TBC enjoyed - since already items have been gated behind ratings that never were in the early seasons of vanilla TBC.

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If they dont reset arena points each season all I can see is the rich getting richer effect. Imagine people who have all their gear now and can save arena points for next season. Those guys would just buy the new season gear right off the bat and climb to high ratings with ease as theyre skilled and have huge gear advantage to those who dont. And after this theyll keep stacking those arena points for next season and the story goes on, leaving actually the casual players at disadvantage every season.

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That is true, but high rated teams already have a huge gear advantage, the reset does nothing to change that. The way arena works (higher rated teams get more points), the rich get and will always get richer. The only way to stop that effect is having all arena teams receive the same amount of points - I don’t think this would or should happen.

This does mean you have to accept that in the arena system it’s an intrinsic feature of the reward system (unlike DoTA, say) that higher rated teams get more powerful, faster, and that happens whether there is a reset or not. Those teams would get back to the top of the ratings immediately in S2 since they will have full Glad S1 gear anyway, even with a reset, when the casual player will only have a couple of S1 items.

The reset may be intended to try and curb the higher rated players, but it hits lower rated players harder, so the disparity gets even worse. Ultimately, it erodes the casual player’s PVP progression far more than it limits the higher rated PvPer. The rich will get richer whether there’s a reset or not, but the poorer will get even poorer if there is a reset.

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Tbh you saying it hits lower rated players harder, might not be true. You claim casual players have problem on getting marks, but I really doubt anyone who even shows slight interest in this game should have a problem acquiring marks with instant ques. After this the question is about honor, which is provided on reset as discussed.

Now the real question is that is it better to have casuals getting some season 1 gear while the tryhards get some/full season 2 gear or is it better to have casuals get some/full season 1 gear while the tryhards stick with season 1 gear?

Also, the fact that you can hoard your points to spend on specific season also feels kinda clunky tbh, I mean people could just cap weekly and then enter when they think its a good season for their class/spec? Even if that mightve been the case in TBC, I feel like the current gaming culture would somehow find a way to abuse this.

Now what they could do is to introduce the last season gear being able to be purchased via honor. This would give equal grounds for anyone to start the new season regardless of their success in last season. Of course they could for example leave weapons still unlockable only with arena points to give the last season successors some well deserved advantage, but thats just a crude suggestion.

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~1500 players and below cannot get full S1 gear. The season will be coming to an end very shortly. The playing field will already be heavily imbalanced with regards to gear at the start of Season 2 - the reset does nothing to change or mitigate that. Season 1 simply has not been long enough for a reset to have this effect. If it had been twice as long and casual players even had a chance of getting the 4 non-rated items, you would absolutely have a point, but that is literally mathematically impossible. Instead their progression towards their 2nd (if they levelled casually) / 3rd item will be entirely removed by the reset.

Now the real question is that is it better to have casuals getting some season 1 gear while the tryhards get some/full season 2 gear or is it better to have casuals get some/full season 1 gear while the tryhards stick with season 1 gear?

To make your “real question” more accurate, is it better to have casuals have 1/2 items of S1 gear, say, but completely lose all their progress towards a 2nd/3rd, so that high rated teams will ‘only’ have a complete set of S1 gear, rather than 1/2 items of S2 gear mixed in with their S1 gear?
Remember that there is a cap on arena points, so even the highest rated teams who have bought zero S1 items (in which case they are unlikely to have been able to stay competitive anyway while other high rated teams spent their points) would not be able to buy a full S2 set week 1 of S2.

Also, the fact that you can hoard your points to spend on specific season also feels kinda clunky tbh

Because the cost reduction is being delayed, casual players are already being encouraged to hoard for that. What the reset means is that a certain amount of arena progression for casual players will simply be lost.

Now what they could do is to introduce the last season gear being able to be purchased via honor.

Yes, one solution would be to make S1 arena gear available for honour in S2. As I noted in the OP, when the arena point reset was introduced in WOTLK, this change was also introduced. However, this still makes casuals have to participate in a time consuming grind for BG marks for items that they had already almost earnt, which seems a bit of a kick in the teeth. In WOTLK there were no BG marks so this problem never occurred.

Of course they could for example leave weapons still unlockable only with arena points to give the last season successors some well deserved advantage, but thats just a crude suggestion.

You already highlighted that the whole point of the arena reset is to try (in a flawed way) to prevent the rich becoming richer. But this suggestion would do exactly that.

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IMO hoarding points to save to the next season should never be encouraged, that just simply makes the player less active to play the game instead making them to just play minimal amount to gather points.

Also, for what I’ve understood is that in the original TBC they did not lower the cost of the past season but instead removed the rating requirements for the past season gear, meaning there wouldnt be anything worth to hoard even though theyd save the arena points. But what it would mean is that those who have full gear and also points to hoard would be at huge advantage in higher ratings.

If bg “grind” is too punishing for casual players, id say that no amount of gear would boost their rating anyways, they simply would not play enough to be good since bgs do not take that much time as previously stated.

Lastly, im not fully against the rich get richer effect, its an MMORPG afterall meaning your efforts should bear fruit and not be reset occasionally. If youd want equal grounds based on only skills id suggest to play a different game. But what I would be against is giving, which could be categorized as massive, advantage to high end skilled players by allowing them to hoard excess points. I mean its not even about skill, its about the fact that some of these people with equal skill couldve simply acquired that advantage by playing 5v5 while someone playing 2v2 would be left without points to hoard just because 5v5 gives such a vast amount of points.

The point is that leaving arena points after season ends hits the hardest on players who actually play the game and are somewhat skilled but arent skilled enough or dont have 5v5 team to play with to acquire points to hoard. And I think that bracket is way more important to keep in check than a bunch of casuals who cant even get a few bgs done. Just my two cents.

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Arena points reset is a must.

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Original TBC arena points did not reset and anybody coming here requesting a reset or saying it’s better to reset need to G T F O and play a different game.
You whining peasants (and blizztards) have COMPLETELY ruined TBCC for me.
Idc if you like this or that. We wanted TBC, we knew what TBC was, s tfu or gtfo it’s that simple.

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how do you know?

you get like 500 points already for 1,4k rating in 5s now. im sure anyone will get their pieces together in the next 2months who actually plays the game :slight_smile:

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Because it’s already in the PTR.
It’ll be very shortly before it’s in the game.
You simply can’t get enough arena points to afford it all before reset, if we’re going by this.
Only the higher rated players would get most of the gear, whilst everyone else gets neglected.
So most people will be getting their 2nd/3rd piece, whilst higher rated players all get their 5th/6th piece.
So it comes down to “the richer get richer”
Since they implemented retail styled arenas, they should’ve done similar with arena points(per win) and add rating requirements to them.

They lowered the cost and removed the rating.

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Don’t worry… knowing how competent blizzard is in terms of TBCC… you might just buy an arena item before server shutdown… log off… season 2 started and refund it to grab all points… would not be surprised :slight_smile:

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Isnt system that rewards your acgievments good system?

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I dont see any release date?
naxx was on ptr for 2months? So like 7 or 8 resets a 500points from now on for low rated 3s/5s after latest changes thats more than enough to buy a couple of pieces especially since they are going to reduce the costs aswell?

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Season 2 gear compared to season 1 gear … the upgrade is so small… probably the best to have 2 pieces of both seasons for resilience bonus times two. So get 2 now and you did not miss out :smiley:

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