I’ll keep this short… ish. I main PVP, Arena specifically. Only in Classic did I start raiding again. I generally played around 2000-3000 games per season across all my characters and brackets when I’m active on retail.
This time around in TBC i didn’t PVP as much - honestly respec costs were the biggest factor because i was mainly raiding, and PVP was fun but not serious enough to tank gold for.
When arena teams where disbanded over a decade ago and personal rating became thing, it was a great boon for my 2v2 partner and I. Generally we had a revolving door of team-mates who would play with us (3v3) and not stick around and that was fine, because our personal ability to purchase gear wasn’t linked to a third player who may or may not play with us for a long time.
But as Arena teams disappeared we noticed a trend of people spending less and less time playing. Eventually it lead to finding people in LFG and, with no voice communication, people would expect to queue and if you lost your first game they’d quit the group. This has been going on for several expansions in Retail.
In TBC it was strange that having a team actually made people more inclined to stick around. I found myself with more consistent team-mates possibly because of social pressure, and possibly because their own “rating” was actually tied to the teams rating.
I think it’s important to note, Arena is a team game. Making it “pick up and play” like LoL or CSGO hasn’t improved the Arena scene, nor incentivised more new players or formation of new teams - it’s done the opposite.
I know why they removed teams, but I’m starting to feel like they’ve gone 0-2 and maybe arena teams are overall a good thing for the community.
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Who could’ve guessed that if you’re not forced to play with a player as a team, then ppl just find some random, play 10games and call it a week, seems very 200iq thing to foresee this, but hey, that wotlk:reforged is all about, finding the ways to ruin the best wotlk exp, so retail look less of a joke in comparison.
Yall wanted changes, enjoy your classic pillars and social interaction …
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To be clear, I didn’t support the removal of Arena teams in WOTLK. I thought it was a bad idea retrospectively in retail, but I largely blamed cross-server groups, not the removal of teams.
I think the teams might be the most important part.
Now you noticed changes are bad when it bites you in your skelly butt xD
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I love this change. Means i can play with all my friends and arent forced to only play with a few.
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For established players with a PVP community, it’s fine.
For your average player it turns PVP into quick-play LoL except there is no downside to behaving like an idiot.
And it incentives people to “team-hop” - why risk your own personal rating learning to play with someone else when you can just leave and get another team-mate? The reality is, it doesn’t work like that. What actually ends up happening is you meet people who aren’t good at the game, think they are and think they are better than everyone they play with. Instead of learning and playing for months, they quit after 2 weeks because of all the “noobs” and the ladder starts to deflate.
if you know everytime you leave a team you need to spend at least an hour getting basic rating back to qualify for points or gear, then you’re less likely to leave after 1 bad game.
I’m genuinely quite annoyed by how Arena is being treated these days - it’s not a quickly play matchmaking MOBA or Royale game - it’s a team game.
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Having an opportunity to play with different people is a bad thing?
Sorry but being locked into 1 team was insanely limiting unless you had partners with the same time schedule.
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I realise this discussion isn’t likely to be well recieved from the Arena community.
The current system suits the current arena players, but its been 10 years of the arena community shrinking. I think we’re left with the minority of players who play arena liking the system while the majority who used to like it have moved on.
tl;dr
Survivorship Bias
I completely agree with u… but i am also in the same situation as you. I always, ALWAYS play with one friend and we swap around others for 3v3s
But for other people that aren’t in a situation like ours, i get that teams are very restrictive and that it’s more casual friendly to not have them
I hated arena teams in tbc. I had a fixed team but whenever the teamleader wasn’t online the rest of us just couldn’t play the game. There was just no possibility except leaving the team. I can’t think of any worse restrictions than arenateams in terms of being able to actually play arena.
The ability to queue with everyone you want is just worlds better
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or maybe there are other factors as well ?
For example I hate; really, really, really hate to fight 7/10 times vs hpal + war / hpal + dk and if you are not facing one of these, there will be 100% rogue 
So I ll have my 10 weekly games, but why should I continue if I am not having fun atm ? 
I let others to have some fancy time with minigun gargoyle
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Noone prevented you to invite your friends into your arena team, you could have up to 10ppl even in a 2v2 team, exactly due to this reason.
each teams player limit was 2x the bracket size. 10 in 5’s, 6 in 3’s, 4 in 2’s. I’d be up for it being a flat 10 at all times, maybe need to adjust gladiator titles though.
They could have increased player limits, they could have removed the gold price, they could have made it so your teams logo appears on those little flags you carry in arena, they could have removed the mandatory “would you like to sign my petition” part that you cant even do because of stupid layers, they could have changed how titles/rewards/items are spread across the rating, they could have changes how you carry personal/team mmr over, they could have added more pvp items …
But nah M+ in wotlk classic it is …
also “rdf bad”
My opinion:
An arena team is really nice WHEN you have an arena mate or maybe two that you play with regurlarly. Was actually the most fun part, naming the team.
But…
When you often play with lfg or other randoms it’s nice to not have the team.
First, no discussion about “who pays a new team”… then flying around and collecting the signatures and turning it in again…
Second, you can play with as many people as you want without having to kick one from the team
Third, people seem to be less afraid to lose their precious 1600 team rating. How many times did I have the discussion that people didn’t want to leave their arena team.
TL;DR:
Team is nice when you have a long term mate
No team is nice when you need to rely on randoms
I can understand both sides.
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But this whole change goes against thoose very same pillars and gives less social interaction. In Classic I would have imagined “forcing” people into creating teams would make more sence. So Im not really understanding your statement here, the changes people arent the one that are promoting the pillars.
Pillars are there to keep Classic feeling like Classic. Not to recreate the road to Retail.
disagree, i like it without teams more